Military Communications

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George H. Bolling (U.S. Army, ret.) Kathryn Roe Coker Michael S. Dean (RAF, ret.) Bernard S. Finn Steven Livingston Clifford Lord Robert J. Oslund Rebecca Robbins Raines Steven J. Rauch Richard P. “Hank” Sauer (USAF, ret.) Thomas S. Snyder Keir B. Sterling Peter M. Swartz (U.S. Navy, ret.) Timothy Wolters David L. Woods (U.S. Navy, ret.) Tommy R. Young II

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 Military Communications

From Ancient Times to the 21st Century

Christopher H. Sterling Editor

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani- cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quota- tions in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Military communications : from ancient times to the 21st century / Christopher H. Sterling, Editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-732-6 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-737-1 (ebook) 1. Armed Forces—Communication systems—Encyclopedias. I. Sterling, Christopher H., 1943–

UG590.M56 2008 358’.2403—dc22 2007018160

12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 CONTENTS

Contributors, xi Preface, xv Acknowledgments, xix Introduction, xxiii

A Army Battle Command System (ABCS), 34 Air Force Communications Agency Army Signal Corps, 35 (AFCA, 1991–2006), 1 Artillery/Gunfire, 40 Air Force Communications Service (AFCS), Association of Old Crows (AOC), 41 Air Force Communications Command Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945), 42 (AFCC) (1961–1991), 3 Atlantic Wall, 44 Air Force Research Laboratory, Australia: Royal Australian Corps of (Rome, New York), 6 Signals, 45 Airborne Warning and Control System Automatic Digital Network (AWACS), 7 (AUTODIN), 47 Airmobile Communications, 8 Automatic Secure Voice Communications Airplanes, 10 (AUTOSEVOCOM), 48 Airships and Balloons, 13 Alaska Communications System, B 15 Bain, Alexander (1811–1877), 51 Aldis Lamp, 17 Baltic Nations, 52 Alexander, Edward Porter (1835–1910), 18 Banker, Grace (1892–1960), 54 American Civil War (1861–1865), 19 Beardslee Telegraph, 55 American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922), 57 (AT&T), 21 Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL), 58 American Wars to 1860, 23 Berlin Airlift (1948–1949), 60 Ancient Signals, 24 Blair, William Richards (1874–1962), 61 Appalachian, USS, 26 Blandford Camp, 62 Ardois Light, 27 Bletchley Park, 63 Arlington Hall, 28 Boer War Wireless (1899–1902), 65 Armed Forces Communications & Britain, Battle of (1940), 66 Electronics Association (AFCEA), 30 Bull Run, Battle of (1861), 68 Armstrong, Edwin Howard Bush, Vannevar (1890–1974), 69 (1890–1954), 31 Army Airways Communications System, C Airways and Air Communications Camp Crowder, Missouri, 71 Service (AACS, 1938–1961), 32 Canada, 72 v

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Canada: Communications Security Defense Switched Network (DSN), 121 Establishment (CSE), 75 Defiance, HMS, 122 Chappe, Claude (1763–1805), 76 Diego Garcia, 123 Cher Ami and the “Lost Battalion,” 77 Dogs, 124 Chicksands, 78 Driscoll, Agnes Meyer (1889–1971), 126 China, People’s Republic of, 79 Coast Defense, 82 E Code, Codebook, 84 Eastern Europe, 129 Code Breaking, 86 Edelcrantz, Abraham (1754–1821), 130 Code Talkers, 87 Edison, Thomas A. (1847–1931), 131 Color, 89 Egypt, 132 Combat Information Center (CIC), 90 Electric Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, Combat Information Transport System “SIGABA”), 134 (CITS), 91 Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), 136 Commonwealth Communications Army Electronic Countermeasures/Electronic Network (COMCAN), 92 Warfare (ECM/EW), 137 Communication Satellites, 92 E-Mail Systems, 139 Communications Security (COMSEC), 96 Enigma, 140 Computer, 98 European Late Nineteenth-Century Wars, Computer Security (COMPUSEC), 101 142 Confederate Army Signal Corps, 102 Coston Signals, 103 F Couriers, 105 Facsimile/Fax, 145 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 106 Falklands Conflict (1982), 146 Fateful Day—25 June 1876, 147 D Ferrié, Gustave-Auguste (1868–1932), DARPANET, 109 148 de Forest, Lee (1873–1961), 110 Fessenden, Reginald A. (1866–1932), 149 Deception, 111 Fiber Optics, 151 Defence Communications Service Agency Field, Cyrus W. (1819–1892), 152 (DCSA), 113 Field Wire and Cable, 153 Defence Fixed Telecommunications System Fire/Flame/Torch, 154 (DFTS), 114 Fiske, Bradley A. (1854–1942), 155 Defense Advanced Research Projects Flaghoist, 156 Agency (DARPA), 115 Flags, 158 Defense Communications Agency (DCA, Flagship, 161 1960–1991), 117 Fleming, John Ambrose (1849–1945), 161 Defense Communications Board/Board of Fort Gordon, Georgia, 163 War Communications (1940–1947), 117 Fort Huachuca, Arizona, 164 Defense Communications System Fort Meade, Maryland, 165 (DCS), 118 Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, 166 Defense Information Systems Agency Fort Myer, Virginia, 167 (DISA), 119 France: Air Force (Armée de l’Air), 168 Defense Message System (DMS), 120 France: Army, 169

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France: Navy (Marine Nationale), 172 India, 226 Friedman, William F. (1891–1969), 174 Information Revolution in Military Affairs Fullerphone, 176 (IRMA), 228 Future Combat Systems (FCS), 177 Infrared Signal Systems, 229 Institute of Electrical and Electronic G Engineers (IEEE), 230 German “Fish” Codes, 179 Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), 232 Germany: Air Force, 181 Intelligence Ships, 233 Germany: Army, 182 International Code of Signals (ICS), 234 Germany: Military Communications International Telecommunication Union School, 186 (ITU), 236 Germany: Naval Intelligence (B-Dienst), 187 Internet, 237 Germany: Navy, 189 Iraq War (2003–Present), 240 Global Command and Control System Israel, 244 (GCCS), 190 Global Information Grid (GIG), 192 J Global Positioning System (GPS), 193 Jackson, Henry B. (1855–1929), 247 Golden Arrow Sections, 195 Jamming, 248 Government Code & Cipher School Japan: Air Force, 250 (GC&CS, 1919–1946), 196 Japan: Army, 251 Great Wall of China, 197 Japan: Navy (Nippon Teikoku Kaigun), 254 Greece, 198 Joint Assault Signal Company Greely, Adolphus W. (1844–1935), 199 (JASCO), 255 Ground Radio, 200 Joint Tactical Information Distribution Gulf War (1990–1991), 201 System (JTIDS), 256 Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), 258 H Joint Task Force–Global Network Hadrian’s Wall, 207 Operations (JTF-GNO), 259 Heliograph and Mirrors, 208 “Jungle Telegraph”, 260 Hello Girls, 211 Jutland, Battle of (1916), 261 Heraldry/Insignia, 213 High-Frequency Direction Finding K (HF DF), 215 Kilby, Jack St. Clair (1923–2005) and Noyce, High-Speed Morse, 217 Robert Norton (1927–1990), 263 Hooper, Stanford C. (1884–1955), 218 Korean War (1950–1953), 264 Horses and Mules, 219 Hotline/Direct Communications Link L (DCL), 221 Lamarr, Hedy (1913–2000), 267 Howe, Admiral Lord Richard Language Translation, 268 (1726–1799), 222 Laser, 269 Human Signaling, 223 Lights and Beacons, 270 Lincoln in the Telegraph Office I 271 Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF), 225 Lowe, Thaddeus S. C. (1832–1913), 273

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M National Security Agency (NSA), 319 Magic, 275 National Telecommunications and Maginot Line, 277 Information Administration Maori Signaling, 278 (NTIA), 321 Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937), 279 Native American Signaling, 322 Marne, Battle of (September 1914), 281 Naval Radio Stations/Service, 323 Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), 326 (1881–1971), 282 Naval Security Group (NSG), 328 Medal of Honor Winners, Signal Corps, Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), 329 284 Navy Commands and Systems, 330 Medieval Military Signaling Navy Radio Laboratory, 332 (500–1500 CE), 286 Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC, 333 Mercury, HMS, 287 Network Enterprise Technology Command Meteor Burst Communications (NETCOM), 334 (MBC), 288 New Zealand: Royal New Zealand Corps Mexican Punitive Expedition of Signals, 336 (1916–1917), 289 Night Signals, 337 Microwave, 290 North Atlantic Treaty Organization Midway, Battle of (3–6 June 1942), 291 (NATO) Communications & Military Affiliate Radio System Information Systems Agency, 338 (MARS), 292 Military Communications-Electronics O Board (MCEB), 294 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 341 Military Roads, 295 Ohio, USS, 342 Miniaturization, 296 OP-20-G, 343 Missile Range Communications, 297 Mobile Communications, 298 P Modulation, 302 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 347 Morse Code, 303 Philippines, 348 Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872), 305 Phonetic Alphabet, 350 Music Signals, 306 Photography, 352 Myer, Albert James (1828–1880), 308 Phu Lam, Vietnam (1961–1972), 354 Pigeons, 355 N Polish Code Breaking, 357 Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815), 311 Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820), 360 National Bureau of Standards (NBS), Postal Services, 361 National Institute of Standards and Propaganda and Psychological Technology (NIST), 313 Warfare, 363 National Communications System (NCS), 314 Q National Defense Research Committee Quartz Crystal for Radio Control, 367 (NDRC), 315 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), R 316 Radio, 369 National Research Council (NRC), 318 Radio Silence, 374

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Reber, Samuel (1864–1933), 375 Submarine Communications, 431 Renaissance and Early Modern Military Suez Crisis (1956), 432 Signals (1450–1800), 376 “System of Systems,” 433 Robison, Samuel Shelburne (1867–1952), 378 Rogers, James Harris (1850–1929), 379 T Room 40, 380 Talk Between Ships (TBS), 437 Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998), 381 Tannenberg, Battle of (1914), 438 Russia/Soviet Union: Air Force, 382 TELCOM Mobile Wireless Units, 439 Russia/Soviet Union: Army, 383 Telegraph, 440 Russia/Soviet Union: Navy, 386 Telephone, 444 Teleprinter/Teletype, 447 S Television, 449 Safford, Laurance F. (1890–1973), 389 Tesla, Nikola (1856–1943), 451 Satellite Communications, 390 Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982), 452 Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, 394 Trafalgar, Battle of (21 October 1805), 453 Searchlights/Signal Blinkers, 395 Transistor, 455 Semaphore (Mechanical Telegraphs), 397 Tri-Service Tactical Communications Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Program (TRI-TAC), 456 (SAGE), 399 Tropospheric Scatter, 457 Signal Book, 400 Truxton, Thomas (1755–1822), 458 Signal Rockets, 401 Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 May 1905), 459 Signal Security Agency (SSA, 1943–1949), Turing, Alan Mathison (1912–1954), 460 402 Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), 404 U Signals Research and Development Ultra, 463 Establishment (SRDE), 407 Underground Communication Centers, 464 SIGSALY, 409 Undersea Cables, 467 Silicon Valley, California, 410 United Kingdom: Royal Air Force, 470 Single Channel Ground and Airborne United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Radio System (SINCGARS), 412 Signals, 473 Single Sideband (SSB), 413 United Kingdom: Royal Navy, 476 Site R, 413 U.S. Marine Corps, 480 Smoke, 415 U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS), Solid State Electronics, 416 481 South Africa, 417 U.S. Navy, 483 Spanish-American War (1898), 418 Spectrum Frequencies, 420 V Spectrum Management, 422 V-Mail, 489 Spies, 425 Vacuum Tube, 490 Spread Spectrum, 427 Van Deman, Ralph Henry (1865–1952), 491 Squier, George Owen (1865–1934), 428 Vehicles and Transport, 492 Stager, Anson (1825–1885), 429 Vietnam War (1959–1975), 494 Strategic Communications Command Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), 499 (STRATCOM), 430 Voice Relay, 500

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W Wireless Telegraph Board, 515 Walkie-Talkie, 503 World War I, 516 War Department Radio Net, 505 World War II, 519 War on Terrorism, 507 World Wide Military Command and Warfighter Information Network–Tactical Control System (WWMCCS), 522 (WIN-T), 509 Warsaw Pact (1955–1991), 510 Y Waterloo, Battle of (18 June 1815), 511 Y Service, 525 Weapons Data Link Network (WDLN), 513 Yardley, Herbert O. (1889–1958), 527 Welchman, Gordon (1906–1985), 513 White House Communications Agency Z (WHCA), 514 Zossen, Germany, 529

Military Communications Museums, 531 Military Communications Conferences, 537 Glossary of Acronyms, 539 Further Reading: A Basic Bibliography, 543 Index, 553

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 CONTRIBUTORS

William H. Brown is editor of Governors’ Documentaries with the historical pub- lications section of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History in Raleigh.

Colin Burke is an independent historian who has been a research fellow at Yale University and with the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

Laura M. Calkins is an oral historian and assistant archivist at the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

Kathryn Roe Coker is with the Office of Army Reserve History at Fort McPherson, Georgia.

Ralph Erskine is a retired barrister in Northern Ireland who has published extensively on World War II signals intelligence.

Peter Freeman was a retired British civil servant.

David Alan Grier is associate dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University and edits the quarterly IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

Michael R. Hall teaches history at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia.

Robert Hanyok is a historian with the Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, Fort Mead, Maryland, and has published extensively on cryp- tology history.

Daniel Harrington is a historian in the Office of History, Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.

Kerric S. Harvey is an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University with a particular interest in communications technology.

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Kathleen Hitt is an independent historian living in Burbank, California.

Arthur M. Holst teaches government and politics at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Danny Johnson is with the U.S. Army’s 5th Signal Command in Mannheim, Germany, and was formerly command historian for the U.S. Army Signal Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Łukasz Kamie ski is completing a doctor of philosophy degree in international and political studies, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

Zdzislaw J. Kapera is a librarian at the Institute of Oriental Philology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and edits the twice-yearly Enigma Bulletin.

Melissa S. Kozlowski is with the historical office, U.S. Army Communications- Electronics Command, at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

John Laprise is a doctoral candidate in communication at Northwestern Uni- versity, Evanston, Illinois.

Karl G. Larew is an emeritus professor of history at Towson State University in Maryland, now living in Pennsylvania.

Cliff Lord is a telecommunications specialist who serves as historian of the Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, and is author of several books on Com- monwealth signals organizations.

Wendy A. Maier is a lecturer in history at Oakton Community College in Des Plains, Illinois.

Larry R. Morrison has been a U.S. Air Force historian for nearly a quarter- century, working at the various communications commands that have been headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

James A. (“Al”) Moyers is chief of the historical office of the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.

Jaime Olivares teaches history at Houston Community College—Central.

Douglas Penisten is a professor and associate dean at the Oklahoma College of Optometry, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Among

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his avocations is researching and writing about the early history of wireless telegraphy.

Rebecca Robbins Raines authored the official history of the U.S. Army Signal Corps and is chief of the Force Structure and Unit History Branch of the Army’s Center of Military History in Washington DC.

Steven J. Rauch is command historian of the U.S. Army Signal Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia.

Wendy A. Réjàn is command historian of the U.S. Army Communications- Electronics Life Cycle Management Command, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

Margaret Sankey teaches history at Minnesota State University in Moorhead.

Marc L. Schwartz teaches history at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Kent G. Sieg is with the office of history of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alexandria, Virginia.

Bolling W. Smith is a retired captain with the Washington DC Police Depart- ment and edits the quarterly Coast Defense Journal from his Maryland home.

Thomas S. Snyder is the former chief historian of the Air Force Communica- tions Agency at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

Robert Stacy edits the H-Levant listserv and is manager of customer documen- tation for a medical software company in Massachusetts.

Christopher H. Sterling (editor) teaches media and public affairs courses at George Washington University and has authored or edited twenty other books on media and telecommunication.

Keir B. Sterling is command historian for the U.S. Army Combined Arms Sup- port Command, based in Fort Lee, Virginia.

Charles A. Swann was a fire direction control specialist in the Army National Guard and will receive his bachelor of science degree in history from Utah State University in fall 2007.

Ronald R. Thomas is a communication specialist in Atlanta. In the 1960s, he served as the U.S. Air Force communications electronics officer at Cape Canaveral in support of the missile and space program.

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Richard J. Thompson, Jr., is dean of mathematics and science at the College of Saint Rose, Albany, New York.

Thomas W. Thompson is an independent scholar.

Lionel E. (“Timm”) Timmerman is chief of the Air Force Communications and Information Office of History at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

Matthew Wahlert is a doctoral candidate in political science at Miami Univer- sity in Oxford, Ohio, where he has begun publishing papers about homeland security and terrorism.

Andrew J. (“Jack”) Waskey, Jr., teaches in the social sciences division of Dalton State College in Georgia.

Timothy Wolters is commanding officer, Pacific Submarine Strike Group Operations Detachment D, and teaches history at Utah State University in Logan.

Brett F. Woods is an independent historical writer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

David L. Woods is a captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and has written widely on early military and naval communications. He lives in West Virginia.

Tommy R. Young II is a consultant and a retired command historian, Air Force Communications Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 PREFACE

This volume is the result of a concerted effort by nearly fifty scholars to assemble a historical reference on a topic that stretches over thousands of years. While huge amounts of ink have been devoted to just about every other aspect of military history (commanders, battles, weapons, even for- tification), for some reason communications has not been one of them. Yet without effective communication, little can be accomplished, regardless of the scale of the military event. What follows is an attempt to rectify that hole in the military literature. Taken together, the 322 entries contained in this volume provide an intro- duction to the vast and fascinating topic of communications in a military context. More specifically, our concern on these pages is with both the tactical and strategic applications of communication technology (and some- times, as in selected battles, with the impact of those applications) in military organizations in war and peace. The scope is purposely broad rather than deep. Entries range from ancient times and the use of fire, smoke, and couriers, up to present-day digital integrated systems. To the extent that information is available, coverage includes as wide a variety of countries as possible over the years, though our emphasis is on the English-speaking world (material on other countries or regions has been limited by availability of the source material and volunteers to write relevant entries). As is made clear in the introduction, communication has been central to the process of fighting throughout history. But to a great extent, it seems to have become part of the background context of hostilities—always there, even if not always well applied. Whether we are talking about the use of human runners as couriers or the use of fire or smoke signals—surely the earliest modes of military communication—communications has been vital to victory even if it has rarely been able to stave off defeat. The effective use of modes of communication, of course, is subject to all the limitations of any other human endeavor. We have provided entries on specific battles where communication played a central part (e.g., the Battle of Midway in 1942), general periods of military history (e.g., Napoleonic), key individuals (military and civilian), commands and other military organizations, specific locations (e.g., chiefly

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important command headquarters), and—most relevant and the largest cat- egory—the specific modes and means of message transmission. These range from the natural (e.g., birds, animals, human runners) to the latest technologies (e.g., the growing variety of digital systems). Each entry places its subject topic within a historical context, is linked to related materials by “see also” suggestions, and includes references for fur- ther reading. Some of the latter are Web based, always a risky business as Web sites all too often come and go without notice. We have leaned toward print sources whenever possible as they will—presumably—last. Brevity and concise writing are a hallmark of any encyclopedia project. We are not telling the whole story here by a long shot. Rather, we have attempted to survey a huge field (both as to historical time covered and breadth of means and modes) in what must be considered an introductory survey. Any project including current military information naturally must work within the confines of security concerns and classified information restric- tions. Put another way, as coverage in these pages gets more current (say, in the period since Vietnam, and especially since about 1990), we are writing entries based on information that is publicly available—not classi- fied. There are doubtless many other organizations, processes, and systems not yet known in the open literature. And doubtless the conclusions drawn here will become outdated with time as more is learned. You will find little information here on specific equipment types or mod- els. That is a huge subject in itself, as epitomized, for example, by Louis Muelstee’s substantial (three volumes with another in preparation) direc- tory of British signals equipment. We focus here on overall developments and provide some equipment examples. Numerous Web sites offer detailed equipment information. Save for minor exceptions, this volume does not deal with the mass media (radio, television, the press) and their coverage of military affairs. Nor does it generally include the broadcasting operations of the military, operated chiefly as moral support for fighting forces. We are not concerned here with international diplomacy, except when those efforts fail and mil- itary action results. A few topics are dealt with briefly but not extensively—code breaking is a good example. Many of the historical efforts at code breaking were not inher- ently military (but were diplomatic or even religious, for example), nor did they have direct military impact. Most importantly, however, excellent code breaking reference material already fills several books the size of this one. Less information is available on countries other than Britain and the United States than the editor would have liked to include. Likewise, fewer “foreign” people, sites, and organizations are listed here than we would have liked. This is due primarily to a lack of authors with the background

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to write about the host of nations not represented on these pages, or ade- quate material in English on which to base entries. Sadly, the information on British military communications suffers from a lack of participation in the project by the impressive Royal Corps of Signals Museum in Blandford Camp, England, one of the world centers of artifacts and research in this field. We tried on numerous occasions to interest them in our project, to no avail. There is no intended bias in these pages. We are not touting a particular point of view—save that communication links are vital to military opera- tions—nor any particular mode to accomplish military needs. As a group of authors, we do not adhere to any single point of view, political or otherwise. Christopher H. Sterling Washington DC

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As with any multiauthor project, this one has benefited from many invalu- able contributors who have brought it to fruition. Thanks go first to prolific series editor Spencer C. Tucker who accepted my proposal to edit the book, despite my own lack of any military background. I had first worked with him as a contributor to his multivolume encyclopedias on the two world wars. At numerous points along the way, he lent a hand, and sometimes a needed word of encouragement when things looked a mite bleak. Editor of a perfectly amazing shelf (more like a bookcase) of encyclopedia references himself, Spence has set the model by which the rest of military encyclopedia makers abide. The project’s advisory board has been essential in shaping the original list of likely entries, writing a number of them and suggesting other authors. This project relied especially heavily on its editorial board, given the breadth of this subject matter and the fact that the book’s editor was an admitted amateur on its many aspects. Made up of civilian historians, for- mer military officers, and expert others both here and abroad, the board was vital to the project. I am especially grateful to those members who not only advised but also agreed to take on the writing of some entries themselves. Among the advisory group, several individuals proved especially helpful. Dave Woods and I go back the farthest—to a late-1970s publishing project that reprinted important contemporary reports and articles on mil- itary and naval communications. These included his own path-breaking History of Tactical Communication Techniques (reprinted by Arno, 1974) and his edited two-volume anthology, Signaling and Communication at Sea (Arno, 1980), both of which helped greatly to inform the present project. I am grate- ful for his positive outlook and advice all along the way. Paul J. Scheips, another of our colleagues on that project who unfortunately died a year before we began this one, edited a matching anthology, Military Signal Communications (Arno, 1980), which has provided another valuable guide- post for work on this volume. Cliff Lord of New Zealand came to the project thanks to our Web page, about 18 months after we had begun the process that has led to this book. He provided a valuable freshness of perspective, numerous good ideas,

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much helpful information, and many entries, all of which helped to broaden the scope of the volume from being more U.S.-centric than it has turned out to be. Conquering distance and time zones, he added considerable authority to much of what you read on these pages. Likewise, Danny Johnson, a retired U.S. Army signals officer now living in Germany, came to us via the Web site and helped greatly with a number of entries, both domestic and those covering European nations. And he kept volunteering to do more. Łukasz Kamie ski, a graduate student in Poland, also came to the project thanks to the Web site and took on a number of central entries about recent technologies and wars. Army Signal Corps Command Historian Steven Rauch has been hugely helpful, not just for specific Signal Corps entries and ideas but also in putting me on the straight and narrow editorial path. Like me, he had con- tributed entries for other encyclopedias (most edited by the ubiquitous Spence Tucker) and helped me get organized early to keep better track of who was doing what and when. He was a continuing source of good ideas, needed corrections, and solid advice. The Air Force communications histo- rians at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, most especially Lionel Timmerman, also provided encouragement, good advice, and numerous relevant pub- lications to help launch this project. Dennis Reader was most kind to share chapters of his in-progress work on post–World War II Royal Air Force signals development. Toward the end of the project, Ralph Erskine in Northern Ireland came across our Web page and contacted me. An acknowledged authority on wartime signals intelligence, he very kindly volunteered to vet our relevant entries—an offer I accepted with alacrity before he could change his mind. His extensive efforts were invaluable and saved the project from mistakes that might otherwise have made it through the editing process. At ABC-CLIO, several people have demonstrated considerable patience in the three-year process of getting this book published. Alicia Merritt was my original editor and she was positive and encouraging whenever I raised a question. She is now retired, and I hope she gets to see the result of her help. Alex Mikaberidze helped shepherd the project through to pub- lication. I’ve very much enjoyed working with both Cami Cacciatore and Ellen Rasmussen in the production process that led to the book you now hold. They each have a good sense of humor which goes a long way with any author. I am especially pleased to thank several family members for specific roles. My brother Keir Sterling, a member of the advisory board as well as a con- tributor, helped me better understand the intricacies of military commands and structure from his role as a command historian at Fort Lee, Virginia. My elder daughter, Jennifer A. Sterling, pushed me into accepting the idea of creating a Web site for this project (and others). She then designed it and got

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it up and running online. It has since grown into a more general profes- sional and a vocational site (www.ChrisSterling.com). She continues to assist in keeping it current. It has proved invaluable in attracting many of our authors and communicating with all of them. My younger daughter, Robin B. Sterling, being the one member of the family involved in the military-industrial complex (she is a consultant to the U.S. Navy), was very helpful in providing ideas and links to people—and solving occasional com- puter crises. And, as always, my spouse Ellen was a great sounding board, good relief, and strong booster in those moments in any project when things seemed not to be going well. I would not get half as much done without her con- tinued support—now for more than four decades.

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It has often been said that armies travel on their stomach. Even truer is that armies (and navies, and more recently air forces) travel—and fight—by rely- ing strongly on their modes of communication. This survey introduces the history of military communications, in part by placing the entries that fol- low in a larger context, with the intent of providing a brief chronological overview of major trends in both the relevant technologies and their many applications. It suggests at least three revolutions have occurred in military communications since the first, around 1850—the coming of the electric tele- graph, of wireless a half-century later, and of the digital era of today. In the vast and growing literature on all aspects of military history on land, at sea, and in the air, a common omission in most cases is any descrip- tion or analysis of the role of communications. (The relatively few excep- tions are found in the Further Reading section at the end of this book, as well as in the references for individual entries within the text.) The numbers of general wartime histories, assessments of specific battles, reviews of weapons development, and biographies of key figures are countless—but precious little is mentioned of the actual communication links that often made the difference between victory and defeat. While exceptions to this dearth can be found (the literature describing the 1942 Battle of Midway comes to mind, as do other studies of World War II code breaking), several reasons underlie this missing history. Central to the “missing in action” status of communications history is that modes of communicating (whether military or in general) changed little over most of the span of human conflict. Human couriers, messages sent by pigeons or dogs, signaling with fire, smoke, drums, or horns—all of these were well known to the ancient Greeks and even earlier populations. While technology gradually transformed weapons (artillery and small guns, for example, by the early Renaissance), fortification (from castles of the Middle Ages to underground defenses by the eighteenth century), transport (steam rail and ships by the nineteenth century), and medical care for the wounded, comparatively little progress was evident in communications.

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Considering communications technology went unchanged until about 1850, how orders were sent or received was seen (if noted at all) as part of the background to confrontation, sometimes acknowledged by historians, but more usually ignored—or merely presumed, thus requiring no com- ment. As one British Royal Navy officer said about the role of military com- munications nearly a hundred years ago, “Considering the amount of attention bestowed to the art of war by the ancients, it is strange that so little information regarding the methods of transmitting orders amongst the armies and fleets can have filtered down to modern times” (Shore 1915). Though perhaps not immediately evident, the entries in this encyclopedia demonstrate that military communication history can be divided into sev- eral distinct periods.

Pre-Electric Era (to 1850)

Prior to the last two centuries, military communication was generally restricted to the distance a man could see or the speed at which he could travel. Couriers, or messengers—on foot, horseback, wagon, or stagecoach, or aboard a ship—defined the speed of sending and receiving messages. Likewise, communication distances were severely limited. The twenty-six- mile marathons run today honor a Greek courier who in 490 BCE ran that distance to tell Athens of a military victory—and promptly dropped dead from the exertion. From those days down to the famous 1776 lamp-in-the-steeple signal (“one if by land, two if by sea”), sent to Paul Revere and bringing about his famous ride of warning, means of signaling saw remarkably little change, let alone improvement. A Roman commander would have readily understood most communication methods used nearly two millennia later. Yet the need for effective communication grew with the size of armies committed to battle. From the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, fighting forces became both better trained and more professional—and expanded by a factor of ten—making coordination and signaling that much more important. From the earliest times, fire beacons or smoke signals were used for sim- ple, unidirectional, prearranged messages, such as reporting a victory or the sighting of enemy forces. Elizabethan England, for example, used a system of fire beacons to warn of the progress of the Spanish Armada through the English Channel in 1588. Signaling modes through history also included sound—drums and other music signals in addition to simple shouting. Pigeons and dogs, and sometimes couriers, were often used to carry mes- sages over greater distances. Maori signaling, in what is now modern New Zealand, and the study of Native American signaling help to demonstrate the innovative communication used by various native populations. Indeed,

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during the French and Indian War in North America (1756–1763), both sides used traditional modes of Native American signaling often not that much different from those of the European powers, which had changed so little over time. In late twelfth-century China, Genghis Khan used homing pigeons as couriers, establishing pigeon messenger posts and relay sites from his Mongol capital, extending to Europe and Asia. A pigeon carried messages at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and flew over mountains, rivers, and enemy territory, while a mounted courier could only travel a few miles per hour. Using pigeons as messengers, Genghis Khan was able to send expe- dited commands to his various armies and distant sovereignties. Architecture also played a part in early modes of communication. Surviv- ing evidence indicates, for example, that means of communication (chiefly signal towers) were included as an integral part of both the Great Wall of China and of Hadrian’s Wall, among other Roman works. Signal station remains clutter the British Isles, some dating from before Rome’s occupa- tion. The military roads of the Roman and later empires, including the British in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were an important means of both transport and communications. Only by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did important innova- tions in military communications first begin to appear. In the late 1700s, the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy introduced a standard system of signal flags, developed by Admiral Lord Howe and improved by Home Riggs Popham during Britain’s constant wars with France. These soon facilitated the send- ing of unplanned messages in both directions. Admiral Nelson made good use of Popham’s flag system to control his ships at the 1805 Battle of Trafal- gar (sending the iconic “England expects that every man will do his duty” message just as the fighting began), resulting in his defeating the French and Spanish fleets. Changes were evident ashore as well. The invention of the telescope in 1608 helped to initiate the use of visual signaling methods and prompted several early semaphore systems. In 1684, Robert Hook offered a semaphore system that used various suspended shapes in the daytime and torches at night. Irishman Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in the late 1760s, proposed his “tellograph,” a series of windmill sails of specific shapes and colors for which he proposed a system of towers and trained operators—one of the first proposals for a complete signaling system. In France, Claude Chappe began building mechanical semaphore stations at various high points around the country in 1794. Each one used a system of flexible rods that, by setting different patterns, could indicate different words or messages. Reserved for senior military officials and government users, his complex network eventually linked Paris to important French towns and, during the Napoleonic Wars, even reached Amsterdam and

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Milan. Napoleon’s Military Telegraph Service operated the Chappe sema- phore system and could achieve message transmission speeds as high as 120 miles per hour in ideal conditions. It was used for tactical field signals on occasion, but was generally more helpful on logistic and strategic levels. The semaphore networks that had so aided Napoleon’s armies were also used to report his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. The British Admiralty also built a system of fixed semaphore stations to communicate between London and its bases along the south coast, though it operated on different principles. Similar, though shorter, systems built in Sweden by Abraham Edelcrantz, by Germany, and around some East Coast harbors of the United States (using two- or three-armed metal semaphores) could provide early notice of ship arrivals—and gave rise to the many “tele- graph hill” or “signal hill” locations that survive still. Semaphore stations, however, were expensive to build, staff (they required well-trained opera- tors), and maintain and were abandoned to fall into disrepair as soon as the immediate emergency passed. And as more countries became allied in larger wars, language differences often slowed message communication. In the meantime, military forces continued to rely on postal services (their own and those more generally available) to serve the needs of both commanders and common soldiers to stay in touch with their families.

Telegraph and Telephone (1850–1900)

The first important revolution in military signaling came in the mid- nineteenth century with the invention of electric telegraphy. This was an era of electrifying change—in the sense of the technologies introduced as well as their transforming impact. For the first time, messages could be sent con- siderable distances (eventually thousands of miles) in a matter of minutes. While many inventors worked on the telegraph, the system most widely adopted eventually was that developed by Samuel F. B. Morse, which ulti- mately used a standard Morse code made up of patterns of dots and dashes to represent letters and numbers. The military potential of telegraphy soon led to its application. The first military test of telegraphy came during the Crimean War (1854–1856) in which Britain and France sought to stop Russian expansion into Ottoman (Turkish) territory. An extensive Russian electric telegraph system provided a vital link from north of St. Petersburg (then the capital) through Moscow and south to Sevastopol on the Black Sea (site of a long siege) as well as east to Warsaw. On the other side, British Royal Engineers built and operated 21 miles of telegraph line between British headquarters at Balaclava and those of the French in Kamiesch. In 1855, a private firm under military direc- tion constructed an undersea cable of 340 miles (by far the longest ever built to that point) to connect Balaclava across the Black Sea with Varna in pre-

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sent-day Bulgaria and then connect with existing continental telegraph lines. Thus commanders in the field were for the first time interfered with (they felt) by constant questions and suggestions (and sometimes orders) from distant military headquarters in London and Paris. Cyrus Field spear- headed the many expeditions to create a successful undersea cable across the Atlantic. During the 1861–1865 American Civil War, the key communications organizations included the competing Union Army’s Army Signal Corps (established in 1860), headed by Albert Myer, and the U.S. Military Tele- graph Corps (formed in 1863), directed by Anson Stager, as well as the Con- federate Signal Corps. Construction and operation (let alone protection) of telegraph lines became an increasingly central military function. Indeed, development of mobile telegraph units was needed to keep up with fast- moving troop formations, as were older and more traditional methods such as the use of couriers. The news of President Abraham Lincoln’s death in April 1865 was sent around Washington DC’s guard posts by flag and lantern signals, but reached the world by electric telegraph. The Army Signal Corps also pioneered aerial reconnaissance and com- munication when Thaddeus Lowe used hot air balloons to survey above Confederate lines. Simple means of signaling (waving arms or white rags, or dropping messages tied to a rock) allowed those who were carried in the balloons’ baskets to indicate what they saw back to forces on the ground. For the first time, common modes of visual (flag and torch) communication were taught at both Annapolis and West Point, a sure indicator of the growing importance of communications in the American military. Balloons and pigeons were used to communicate messages in and out of Paris during the 1871 siege by the Germans. Use of both the telegraph and the heliograph mirror device greatly aided military forces (some of which would soon become the Royal Corps of Sig- nals in 1920) during British colonial military signaling efforts in India, Africa (including the Boer War), and the Middle East. These technologies were also valuable to U.S. Army detachments during the post–Civil War expeditions in the American West to suppress Indian uprisings. Effective communication and thus coordination of often thinly spread military forces frequently proved essential to success. The short Spanish-American War saw similar applications, along with use of some field telephones. At the same time, naval communication was greatly improved by the development of several types of night signals that used prearranged pat- terns of colored lights mounted high on a ship’s mast. Heretofore, naval sig- naling had been largely limited to daytime hours when ships could see signal flags flown by other vessels. The telephone, developed in the late 1870s, largely by Alexander Graham Bell, had a slower initial acceptance than had its wired forebear, telegraphy. It did not strike most observers as being as revolutionary as the earlier telegraph.

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Bell demonstrated his talking device to fascinated people at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia on a fateful day in June 1876. But for several decades (until the early 1900s), the telephone remained an expensive device and service (few could afford to subscribe), it could only communicate short distances, and it left no physical record of the communicated message. The telegraph readily overcame these shortcomings, though it required well- trained operators who could present security problems. Thus the full poten- tial of the telephone was only slowly realized. The first military telephone switchboard was not installed by Britain until 1896. While telephones were quickly adopted in headquarters, tactical or strategic use would await improved technology in the twentieth century. Only in 1915, for example, did the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) open the first coast-to-coast telephone link—and telephone undersea cables did not appear until 1956. Britain demonstrated what diplomatic and military needs—melded with vision and planning—could accomplish as it developed its “All Red” net- work of telegraph undersea cables to link its empire posts. (The term “all red” was a reference to maps, sometimes on postage stamps, that often showed the British Empire and its colonies in red.) Combined with land telegraph lines, that network allowed for quicker military response when needed, for example, to quell colonial uprisings. By the late nineteenth cen- tury, Britain effectively controlled most world communication networks. Propelled by the 1898 Spanish-American War, the United States also expanded its own networks, constructing military telegraph cable connec- tions with Cuba (which could sometimes get messages to Washington in twenty minutes, though communications with naval commanders often took far longer), out to the Philippines, and up to and within Alaska (which by 1900 included a 150-mile wireless telegraph link across a bay), all of which were eventually turned over to commercial operators. The United States also integrated wired modes of communication into its extensive sys- tem of turn-of-the-century coast defense installations built to protect major harbor cities and naval bases. These concrete structures included sometimes complex means of fire control to enable large guns to hit targets miles off shore. Telephone links tied commanders both to individual gun batteries and to central headquarters. The Army Signal Corps first provided exten- sive combat photography during this conflict.

Wireless (1895–1914)

Development of wireless telegraphy or radio took military communications another huge step forward—a second revolution in communications barely a half-century after the first. Now signals could be sent rapidly beyond the reach of sight or travel distances, anywhere, in fact, and not just where wires reached. British army and Royal Navy officers such as Henry Jackson were

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among those who pioneered research on the military potential of wireless telegraphy, applying crude systems to experimental field conditions. The French installed wireless on a gunboat in 1899. German military units were assisted by the work of their countrymen Adolph Slaby and George von Arco in the 1890s. Generally merchant ships were quicker to adopt wireless than their military counterparts. Marconi’s work was closely mon- itored by the Royal Navy and the British army while de Forest sold radio equipment to the American military. Fessenden had a fractious relationship with the U.S. Navy, which often used his devices without any patent pay- ments. Armstrong made one of his key innovations while serving with the Signal Corps in France and, in World War II, allowed the free use by the mil- itary of his frequency modulation (FM) invention. Radio opportunities for “remote control” of land forces were exceeded only by what wireless promised for naval fleets. For the first time, wireless allowed naval commanders to keep in touch with vessels and whole fleets sailing far from land. It fell to Japan, in the Bat- tle of Tsushima in 1905, to first demonstrate the vital importance of effective use of wireless to control a battle fleet. The opposing Russian force was nearly wiped out. The Royal Navy and, only slightly more slowly, the U.S. Navy, adapted the benefits of radio to fleet operations, expanding their installations as radio equipment improved. The U.S. Navy, designated by the Wireless Telegraph Board of 1904 to lead American efforts in the new medium, established an expanding number of naval radio stations to improve fleet communications. Indeed, the Navy played a dominant role in all technical and policy-related American radio developments prior to and during World War I. The Naval Radio Laboratory and the Naval Research Laboratory would become centers of communication technology develop- ment and application testing. Ships could now call for help in emergencies— most spectacularly in the case of the White Star ocean liner Titanic in 1912. Invented in 1904, improved in 1906, and fully understood by about 1912, the vacuum tube (or “valve” in British usage) became central to wireless communication from about 1920 until superseded by the transistor in the 1960s. For a half-century fragile vacuum tubes formed the core of most mil- itary electronic equipment. Britain enhanced its existing telegraph cables by developing (with Mar- coni) an imperial chain of All Red wireless transmitters early in the twen- tieth century. It also made limited use of wireless in South Africa during the Boer War.

World War I (1914–1918)

Both wired and wireless communication saw their first real military testing during the bloody World War I, especially on the long-stalemated Western

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Front. The early battles of the Marne in the west and Tannenberg in the east underscored the importance of good communications. But after the war of movement ended in September 1914, armies limited their use of tactical radio, the equipment for which was still cumbersome to use. Only late in the war did forward units obtain field radio equipment. Germany experimented with radios for its airship fleet, as did both sides, late in the war, with air- planes, first sending messages from ground to air, and then both ways. Military radio in 1914 was crude on both sides of the conflict. Antennas were obvious targets, and equipment was fragile, cumbersome, and vulner- able to weather or enemy action. There were few trained operators and never enough radios available (a U.S. Army division of 20,000 men rarely had more than six radios even in 1918). But radio’s biggest drawback was the lack of senior commanders willing to use or trust it in battlefield con- ditions. Poorly organized at first, Army radio users also suffered from security breaches such as sending vital messages in the clear rather than in code. One concern was that all radio signals were subject to being heard by the enemy and thus required effective systems of message coding. To allow short-range telephony with little chance of being overheard, the British introduced the use of the Fullerphone in trench warfare. While all sides sought to “listen in,” the British most effectively devel- oped the direction-finding receivers and careful traffic analysis essential to successful code breaking. German undersea cables were cut by the British in the early days of the war, forcing the enemy to use radio trans- missions to which the British could tune—and eventually understand as their code-breaking expertise expanded. With the help of codebooks seized from captured German naval vessels, the Royal Navy Intelligence, or Room 40 cryptanalysis staff, was able to decrypt many German naval signals— including the infamous “Zimmermann telegram” urging Mexico to declare war on the United States, which finally brought the United States into the war in early 1917. Until the end of the war, however, cryptography remained poorly integrated with operational practice. American efforts, for example, some under the Army’s Herbert O. Yardley, were only partially successful. World War I naval forces also made extensive use of radio to control widely dispersed fleets. In the 1916 battle of Jutland (and in many other battles), admirals often failed to make the best use of radio information, relying on flag signals that might be misread in battle conditions. As spark- gap equipment was replaced (1916–1917) by better arc and then (1918) vac- uum tube–powered equipment, naval radio’s value increased further. Wartime needs and growing equipment procurement greatly accelerated the pace of radio’s technical development. Vacuum tube–based equipment, rare in 1914 (when obsolete spark-gap wireless telegraphy was still wide- spread), was becoming standard by 1918, vastly increasing radio’s capabil-

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ities by adding voice to code communication. Until 1916, German U-boats, too cramped to carry bulky long-wave radio equipment, were limited to shorter-range (200–300 miles) radio links. As vacuum tube technology made possible longer-distance sending and receiving, sub- marines shifted their attacks farther into the Atlantic. Not all ships’ captains appreciated their loss of independent action with the development of wireless. More than radio, telegraph and telephone lines linked fighting units down to the battalion level. Some of the 38,000-mile telephone service by 1918 was designed and operated by AT&T on behalf of the military; Army Signal Corps personnel operated the remainder. Hello Girls acted as oper- ators to allow more men to be assigned to military duties. Because lines could be so easily broken in the fighting, however, effective command and control often depended on the use of couriers (frequently mounted on horses, bicycles, motorcycles, or small motor vehicles) or message-carrying pigeons or dogs, as in the past. One carrier pigeon, for example, Cher Ami, helped to get messages through that led to the rescue of the famous “Lost Battalion.” Static trench warfare on the Western Front also required wide- spread use of pyrotechnic signals (such as signal rockets) and whistles to shift troops into or out of trenches or warn of gas attacks. A new element in military communications and fighting first appeared in this war—propaganda and psychological warfare. “Propaganda” is a type of military communication designed to weaken an enemy before and during operations. It seeks military gains without, or more usually in sup- port of, military force. While used well before nineteenth-century warfare (there are many historical references to propaganda-like combat efforts, and both sides in the American Civil War made use of propaganda), propaganda and psychological warfare really came into their own during the two world wars. Drawing on growing understanding of persuasive techniques—and fear—propagandists for both the Central Powers and the Allies used a vari- ety of communication media to soften up enemy forces and countries. In past times as well as more recent wars, propaganda has drawn on occult themes. These would be greatly expanded in World War II—as would jamming of enemy radio transmitters to try to obliterate their messages. The Army Signal Corps expanded fiftyfold as it served growing Ameri- can forces in Europe. This growth created a huge need for trained personnel as well as a formal research and development establishment, so the corps created what would become Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which remained the country’s chief signal school until 1974. Extensive training programs were established in most countries that introduced principles of wireless (and wired systems) to thousands of men. These trained personnel would play an important role in helping to push radio developments in the years to come.

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Between the Wars (1918–1939)

During the interwar period, innovation continued at both commercial and military laboratories (despite draconian budget cuts at the latter), which fur- ther aided military communications. Vacuum tube radios would reign supreme for several decades, despite their fragility. By 1922 improved means of tube manufacture and cooling led to vastly more powerful tubes. But vacuum tubes, like the light bulbs they resembled, were fragile, threw off heat, and needed constant replacement. Radio equipment had to “warm up” (their tubes) before being used. Development of four-element vacuum tubes in 1929 was the last fundamental improvement in basic tube technol- ogy. By the late 1930s considerable progress had been made in miniaturiza- tion of vacuum tubes to develop smaller electrical devices. Radar was developed that would help save the day for the Royal Air Force in the forthcoming Battle of Britain. Microwave transmission was developed and perfected. Shortwave radio could communicate at great distances, yet equipment remained small enough to fit into submarines, aircraft, and tanks. Armstrong developed FM radio, which would enjoy widespread tactical use during the coming war. With new radio services, military com- manders could more easily control naval fleets (including submarines), fast-moving armored divisions, or bombers spread over enormous areas. And of huge importance in the coming conflict, electric cipher machines to encode radio transmissions (of which the German Enigma device is the best known) appeared in several countries, allowing for faster coding of longer messages. Their use made enemy decoding far more difficult (some of the Enigma and German “Fish” codes were never broken). William F. Friedman became a central figure in developing American methods of military code breaking, as did his colleague Frank B. Rowlett. Improved modes of facsimile and teleprinter equipment allowed military forces to more readily and rapidly exchange maps and other graphic mate- rial. The growing importance of aviation radio led to the 1938 formation of the Army Airways Communications Service, the first of a succession of Air Force communications commands.

World War II (1939–1945)

Even more than the previous world war, World War II demonstrated the value of a host of both old and new communications technologies. Commu- nication links, both wired and wireless, were made a central part of massive defensive fortifications, including American coast defenses, the French Maginot Line of the 1930s, and the German-built Atlantic Wall of the early 1940s.

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In a global war in which air power and mobility were dominant factors in the fighting, all countries made extensive use of radio traffic, for the need to effectively command and control forces took precedence over the risks of interception. The U.S. Army’s Command and Administrative Network connected Washington DC with all major field commands at home and overseas. Newly developed FM radio was used for local communication on land and sea, as, for instance, between merchant ships and their naval escorts in a convoy. By the end of the war, virtually every Allied military vehicle and aircraft carried a transceiver. Walkie-talkies allowed infantry to stay in constant communication with headquarters—one of the first demon- strations of small-scale mobile communications in wartime. Improved communications allowed political or military leaders to micro- manage distant battles, a temptation to which Hitler increasingly suc- cumbed as the war turned against Germany. His orders were sent through the huge underground Zossen site near Berlin, all of them coded by the Enigma or more advanced devices—and by the end of the war, most were being read in real time (as Ultra) by the Allies. Although all sides relied on machine encryption to protect their communications, the British Govern- ment Code & Cipher School at Bletchley Park and American cryptanalysts at Arlington Hall and Nebraska Avenue developed techniques to break codes (aided by captured codebooks) and thus read enemy messages almost as quickly as their intended recipients. Alan Turing, John Tiltman, Gordon Welchman, and others worked at Bletchley Park to develop early analog computers to assist in the growing code-breaking task. The ability to read enemy codes helped in several highly successful Allied deception efforts to mislead enemy commanders. Indeed, the code-breaking advantage of the Allies (in one of the closest- held secrets during, and for decades after, the war) had a huge impact on the course of the war, from the eventual winning of the Battle of the Atlantic against German U-boats to placing American forces in the right place to defeat the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway. Careful monitoring and analysis of enemy radio transmissions, or signals intelligence, brought vital information to the Allies. On the other hand, the American and British electric cipher machine (SIGABA and Typex) equipment and the SIGSALY system used by Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt to talk by telephone across the Atlantic, each of them perfected during the war, could be operated by hastily trained personnel and proved invulnerable to enemy code-breaking efforts. Code-breaking abilities were very closely held, and many field commanders did not know the derivation of informa- tion provided to them (which did not help them believe what they were told). Essential radio security was sometimes achieved by requiring total radio silence, but another approach was the U.S. Army’s use of Native American

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code talkers communicating messages by simply speaking their own lan- guages, which were totally unknown to the Germans or Japanese. All sides learned propaganda lessons from World War I to apply to World War II. Of all the fighting powers, Germany’s propaganda was clearly the best synchronized with its military effort. Film and radio (broad- casting was new to this war) helped promote the mighty power of German arms, as did bright poster art and printed media. Propaganda and psycho- logical warfare on the tactical level were first used on a large scale in World War II. By late in the war, psychological warfare units often operated at the small-unit level. The most successful Allied military efforts were care- fully designed leaflets intended to lower enemy soldier morale and/or induce desertion or surrender. They emphasized the decent treatment a prisoner would receive as well as bad conditions back home, and that offi- cers were getting better food and shelter than frontline soldiers. These were particularly effective in Europe, less so in the Pacific because of cultural dif- ferences. Many millions of leaflets were dropped by German aircraft. As in World War I, communication needs again led to extensive programs devoted to training of the thousands of radio operators needed on land, at sea, and in the air. The variety of more sophisticated communication sys- tems, including those for air and naval forces, required longer and more specialized training efforts.

The Korean and Vietnam Wars (1945–1975)

Research to improve military communication continued apace following World War II. Many government entities including the National Bureau of Standards contributed to research, as did many corporations seeking gov- ernment contracts, including David Sarnoff’s RCA. Effective radio commu- nication was essential in the year-long Berlin Airlift that involved both military and civilian pilots flying cargo along narrow flight paths. Korean War (1950–1953) communications generally used equipment from and followed patterns set in World War II, though television brought a delayed view of the war to home viewers. Much World War II commu- nications equipment had been properly moth-balled and stockpiled in Japan in 1949 to 1950. American forces lived off this equipment during the early, desperate months of the Korean War. Korea’s climatic extremes, mountainous terrain, and lack of good roads greatly complicated commu- nications. The Army Signal Corps depended heavily on very high fre- quency (VHF) radios to span the long distances, while on the ground signal soldiers often used water buffalo to string wire. After truce talks began in mid-1951, the front became largely static, and wire and radio oper- ations more routine. Paradoxically, the Army Signal Corps also tried carrier pigeons, though they proved vulnerable to Korean hawks.

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Seeds of the third military communications revolution were laid in this period. Development of the transistor at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the late 1940s began what would become the solid state electronics revolu- tion in communications. The notion of solid state electronics had been suggested in principle in the early 1950s and was of central interest to the armed services. If workable, such systems promised huge benefits of special value to military applications—robustness, lower weight and power requirements, and far greater capacity. The U.S. Air Force contracted with Westinghouse in 1959 to experiment with “molecular electronics.” The Signal Corps was already developing a “micro-module” project to shrink component size across a variety of military needs. Research and develop- ment work was underway at many companies, usually funded by Air Force or Navy contracts. Over the next dozen years reliance on fragile vac- uum tubes was swept away in the face of more durable transistor circuits. That revolution was substantially boosted with the integrated circuit invented independently by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce in 1959. They both determined that squeezing all elements of an electrical circuit—transistors, connections, and other electronic devices—onto a tiny silicon chip could be accomplished and would save considerable space while speeding up signal processing speed. Eliminating the need for individually hand-wired con- nections between the transistors and other elements would also greatly increase circuit reliability. The potential was huge. These tiny means of pow- ering electronic devices aided the drive to component miniaturization that lay behind the development of ballistic missiles and computers. By the 1960s, Silicon Valley was fast developing, funded in part by growing mil- itary procurement of information technology (IT). Working with the U.S. Air Force, the Army Signal Corps launched the world’s first communications satellite in December 1958. Two years later it cooperated with the Weather Bureau and others to develop the first weather satellite. Communication links proved vital in the short but intense 1962 Cuban Mis- sile Crisis. By the late 1960s, communications satellites had begun to allow instantaneous communication from central military commands to remote parts of the world. For more local areas, intelligence ships bristled with communication antennas of all sorts, but as the Liberty affair proved, they were vulnerable to attack or takeover. China, India, and Pakistan developed increasingly sophisticated systems of military communications, as did such smaller countries as the Netherlands. British Commonwealth nations includ- ing Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa all honed their com- munications systems, many of which dated to before World War I. In 1960 the U.S. Department of Defense put its various communication sys- tems under unified control to become a single Defense Communications Sys- tem, managed by the Defense Communications Agency. In October 1962, a concept of operations for a World Wide Military Command and Control

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System (WWMCCS) sought to integrate all of these systems. Operating from 1963 to 1996, the WWMCCS was a centralized system to access information and communicate directives to American military forces. Labeled a “loosely knit confederation” of systems, WWMCCS lacked the centralized design, procurement, and operations needed to perform its mission successfully on a consistent basis. In 1967, the packet-switched DARPANET began to con- nect a growing number of academic and defense research establishments— it would operate for more than two decades. DARPANET (which would evolve into the Internet in the mid-1990s) used computer protocols to inter- connect different types of equipment and software. The Vietnam War (1959–1975) saw the peak of analog military communi- cations potential. Airmobile communications closely tied ground troops to their air support. For the first time, high-quality commercial communications became available to the soldier in the field. On the tactical level, new tran- sistorized combat radios enabled infantry, armor, and artillery to communi- cate directly with each other. For strategic purposes, the Signal Corps employed such sophisticated techniques as microwave relay and tropo - spheric scatter. The American Phu Lam communications hub in South Viet- nam processed growing amounts of military information by the early 1970s. Priority access over all systems—including the first communication satel- lite links—was assigned to command-and-control and intelligence users, while logistics, personnel, and other less urgent matters were carried on slower radio-teletype links until the introduction of first-generation digital communications (the automatic digital network, or AUTODIN, system) in 1968. After American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, shortages of skilled technicians and spare parts rendered some 40 percent of the U.S.-supplied communications equipment held by South Vietnam forces inoperable. As a result, increasing quantities of their classified messages were also carried by courier until the war’s end in 1975. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces relied on a combination of old and newer means of communication, primarily paper orders carried by couriers as well as Chinese and Soviet radio equipment. U.S. intelligence estimates showed that signals personnel comprised less than 5 percent of total enemy unit strength, compared with up to 20 percent in American ground forces. Security protocols included use of prearranged transmission times, spectrum frequency changes, concise messaging, and one-way com- munications. During large operations, minimal use was made of radios; troops relied instead on traditional couriers, fire and flame, lights and bea- cons, and music signals (whistles and the like). Unlike in earlier wars, tactical military and larger political concerns were very closely intertwined, often confusing propaganda messages and effects. Broadcasts, loudspeaker announcements, and leaflets were the primary means of transmitting messages against the Viet Cong and North Viet-

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namese throughout the fighting areas. But both enemy forces were far more complex targets (they were more committed to their fighting role than earlier opponents) in what many considered a civil war. The way in which the war ended in Vietnam had a debilitating impact on the practice of mil- itary propaganda and psychological warfare, and their importance sharply declined in the American military services for several years. Throughout the 1945–1990 Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union spent enormous sums on weapons, communications security, and counterintelligence efforts, though often with only limited result. As but two examples of expensive means of air defense communications, the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system pushed analog technology to the edge of what was attainable. Security of American military transmissions fell to the Signals Security Agency, soon to become the huge National Security Agency based at Fort Meade, located north of Washington.

Digital Era (since 1975)

The third revolution, development of computer-controlled digital means of communication, has again transformed military communications, creating dramatic new information war capabilities. Navigation and global position- ing satellites allow small units to fix their (or an enemy’s) position within a few yards—although, of course, only the richest nations can afford such technologies. Terror organizations and guerrilla fighters rely (once again) on less expensive human messengers rather than electronic communications, which can be so easily read by sophisticated snooping systems. In its constant quest for the best and latest systems of IT, the U.S. Depart- ment of Defense’s Defense Information Systems Agency moved to replace its WWMCCS with the Global Command and Control System in 1996. For much of the period after Vietnam, technology could not support all of the missions that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted performed. WWMCCS was also a collection of systems that had never been designed or built with inter- operability in mind: They could often work well individually, but not together. Further, the military culture in the 1980s and 1990s was hostile to interservice cooperation, and thus systems were procured without reference to overall defense needs because centralized objectives were seen as sec- ondary. Increasing integration of formerly separate systems led in the twenty-first century to U.S. pursuit of the Global Information Grid (GIG) at a huge cost but offering considerable potential. When fully operational after 2010, the GIG will allow widespread and secure military use of both e-mail and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies.

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The expansion and continued importance of these and other technologies are evident in the growing number of military communications conferences that provide a useful interface between commercial contractors and military procurement officials. Additionally a host of military communications museums help to preserve what has gone before—and attest to a growing fascination with the three revolutions that have transformed the field. The Association of Old Crows and many other veterans’ groups also seek to pre- serve the older systems and what it was like “to be there.” The first network-centric wars were the Gulf War (1990–1991) and the Iraq War (starting in 2003 and ongoing at the time of publication). The first made use of more than sixty communication satellites while the second used more than a hundred. During the Gulf War, the global positioning system (GPS) was invaluable on often featureless desert fighting areas. AWACS air- craft helped support a variety of joint land, sea, and air operations. The Iraqi high command’s ability to communicate and control its forces was destroyed early in the war, giving the coalition forces tactical superiority. Ironically, this was accomplished by sophisticated weapons systems, which themselves were completely dependent on communication systems. The overall coali- tion communication system was impressive, consisting of 2,300 personnel, 7,000 radio frequencies, and 59 communication centers. During the war 29 million phone calls were made. Yet the Gulf War also demonstrated limita- tions in military communication due to poor interservice compatibility. A dozen years later, the Iraq War was the first to be overwhelmingly dom- inated by computerized and digital communications. Indeed, IT was the cor- nerstone of military communication. Based on the Iraq War experience, modern military communication appears to be more about communication among machines (computers, systems, and networks) than among humans. Communication has become real time, automatic, digitized, netlike, multi- level, multiservice, and dependent on commercial IT innovations. For exam- ple, improvement in GPS accuracy by more than 20 percent since the 1990s increased the effectiveness of thousands of GPS-guided munitions used during the Iraq conflict. Digital communications and networks gave coalition forces unprecedented air-land-naval operations coordination and near-per- fect battlespace awareness. The Army Battle Command System (ABCS) enabled commanders to transmit orders, intelligence, logistics information, and other useful data. On a more personal level, VoIP allowed instant mes- saging from 180 Internet kiosks set up throughout Iraq. Virtually all soldiers used e-mail and instant messaging to stay connected with home.

Summing Up

Several trends underlie the development of military communications. First, communication innovations almost never originate within military or naval

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organizations. With few exceptions, new ideas for improved (faster, more capable) tactical and strategic communication come from individuals and (increasingly) private companies. In the United States, for example, most of the initiative has come from the private sector, with only occasional gov- ernment innovation. Where government plays a vital role, of course, is in its procurement decisions that have often speeded telecommunications development, especially in wartime. Second, and all too often, senior officials rejected seminal ideas—perhaps most classically illustrated by the Italian navy’s disinterest in Marconi’s wireless system in the mid-1890s. Many cases are seen where military lead- ers have their heads in the last war (or century) and ignore breakthrough ideas for improving communications, only to adopt them after their oppo- nents do. This occurred on several levels—running through this history are examples of commanders distrusting that which they could not see for themselves, and thus ignoring communicated messages. Nelson’s famous “blind eye” to an order he did not wish to “see” is but one example. Third, in every conflict each side seeks information about the other while hiding its own. Yet such information is especially vulnerable while it is being communicated, and thus military forces have always been con- cerned about maintaining secrecy as well as promoting intelligence efforts. Security concerns can slow the pace of military message sending, but countless cases in history demonstrate how security lapses have resulted in military reversals. Allied code-breaking success in both world wars resulted, in part, from such lapses. Fourth, military communications’ development is made up of systems carrying ever-more complex messages. For centuries the limited means of signaling meant that only the most simple and preplanned communication signals could be sent any distance. Only around 1800 did that situation begin to change as both land and sea systems of communication allowed for the sending of more complex signals, including limited two-way mes- saging. Another half-century would pass before the first electrical system (the telegraph) opened up even more opportunities. Fifth, an organizational trend evident here is that armies generally set up separate communications arms while navies often do not. The military signals process can be organized in a variety of ways. A centralized and specialized signal corps has often been created for armies, but most naval and air services seem to have preferred a more dispersed role for communications. Increasingly, military communication needs and operations have become a central part of electronics research and development. This is partially a factor of scale—government procurement contracts have underwritten much of the IT industry—and partially a matter of parallel interests. The business world seeks greater speed and message integrity, for example, just as military authorities do. Indeed, the cross-fertilization between the civilian and military economies seems to grow closer by the day. Cold War needs,

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for example, pushed the miniaturization needed to fit electronic equipment into ballistic missiles—and those electronics capabilities now see wide- spread use in civilian markets. Flat-screen technology, faster computer chips, GPS navigation, higher definition television, and improved means of weather reporting have all benefited from military procurement that has helped pay the costs of development. Indeed, the list of civilian spin-offs from military communications projects is virtually endless. Perhaps the most important trend is the continuing search for military communication systems with greater speed and capacity. Military needs have almost always exceeded the means available—as with concern about sufficient spectrum frequencies, despite use of single-sideband, spread spectrum, and tropospheric scatter systems. Digital systems and compres- sion have greatly aided the capacity problem, as have the use of laser and fiber optic links. Finally, while communication technologies have largely resolved how to get information to and from commanders and fighting forces, they have also contributed to the information overload that can slow or confuse any mil- itary action. Less attention has been paid to how to help humans prioritize the flow of information on which they must act. Communicating informa- tion is a vital part of military decision making, but so is the ability to parse what is most vital from that which is only potentially useful.

Source Shore, Henry N. 1915. “Signalling Methods Among the Ancients.” United Service Magazine 52 (November): 166–174.

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Air Force Communications Agency installation functions to Air Force Materiel (AFCA, 1991–2006) Command (July 1992); and air traffic services to the Air Force Flight Standards Agency The end of the Cold War prompted a major (October 1992). Two further FOA units were reorganization of U.S. Air Force communica- reassigned in 1994: The Air Force Telecom- tions. The Air Force Communications Com- munications Certification Office was inacti- mand (AFCC) transferred more than 600 vated, with most functions transferring to subordinate units and some 47,000 personnel the Defense Information Systems Agency to Air Force service commands. AFCC was (May), and a training squadron was trans- downgraded to field operating agency ferred to Air Education and Training Com- (FOA) status in 1991, though Illinois con- mand (October). Now a small, technically gressional delegation intervention delayed oriented headquarters with two specialized this action until 28 May 1993, when it communications functions—Hammer ACE became the Air Force Command, Control, (a mobile communications element) and the Communications and Computer Agency Air Force Protective Services Support Team (AFC4A). An Air Force–wide integration of (supporting the U.S. Secret Service)—the communication/computer and information FOA acted as an extension of the Air Staff, functions prompted yet another name assisting in the development of architectures, change—to the Air Force Communications policies, procedures, requirements, stan- Agency (AFCA)—on 13 June 1996. dards, and technical solutions for Air Force During the 1990s, the FOA transferred command, control, communications, and responsibility for frequency management to computer (C4) systems; ensuring integration the Air Force Frequency Management Center and interoperability among all such systems; (October 1991); operational test and evalua- and overseeing the professional development tion to the Air Force Operational Test and of relevant personnel. Evaluation Center (June 1992); acquisition, In late 1993, the FOA began to acquire new most software support, and engineering and responsibilities as the Air Force assigned a

1

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lead command or agency for each weapon George W. Bush’s administration (2001– system and those associated programs oper- 2009) initiated a substantial transformation of ated by more than one major command. The the military to develop joint, network-centric, communications community established a and distributed forces capable of rapid deci- similar program for its C4 systems, and the sions and massed effect as needed. With Air Staff designated the agency as executive existing battlefield networks composed of agent to advocate Air Force–wide planning, disparate systems operating in discrete data testing, training, implementation, and life- enclaves, often unable to share information, cycle management for designated programs. the seamless integration of systems, activities, Initially designated as the lead command for and expertise across all manned, unmanned, the Base Information Infrastructure (the Air and space capabilities became the Air Force’s Force portion of the Defense Information key aim. This prompted the creation of a new Infrastructure), the redesignated AFCA grad- deputy chief of staff for Warfighting Integra- ually gained responsibility for leading Air tion (AF/XI) in April 2002 to modernize and Force efforts including secure voice, electronic integrate Air Force manned, unmanned, and messaging, electronic data interchange, wire- space information systems by integrating less communication, information assurance, command, control, communications, com- high-frequency radio, integrating National puter, intelligence, surveillance, and recon- Airborne Operations Center communications naissance (C4ISR) capabilities. As AF/XI’s modifications, the Executive Airlift communi- technical arm, AFCA became responsible for cations network, and Internet protocol appli- maintaining information superiority by cations. The list varied through the years, ensuring Air Force communications and with the agency serving as lead command information systems were both integrated for an average of eighteen programs between and interoperable. 1997 and 2006. AFCA commanders after 2000 realigned As the FOA gained new missions, its com- AFCA resources to better serve the ever- manders reorganized the agency to mirror expanding Air Force network, while leading Air Force headquarters and major com- efforts to provide seamless connectivity for mands to better support both. Prior to the command and control of air and space forces 1996 designation of the agency as AFCA, by optimizing and integrating Air Force data, commanders stressed the support of major voice, video, imagery, and information ser- commands and units in the field. Since then, vices. This included developing and vali - AFCA has been designated as lead agency dating progressive architectures, technical for common-user communications infra- standards, requirements, policies, and techni- structure systems connecting to the network cal solutions; serving as the Air Force focal and developing architectures that people in point for obtaining and managing commercial the field could quickly implement. This and government-owned long-haul commu- included standardization of equipment, nications services and equipment; deploying processes, and training that had existed technical teams and network assessment capa- before the AFCC command dissolved. AFCA bilities to ensure communications and infor- resources were focused on operational sup- mation combat power; and maintaining quick port, aligning them closely to the major com- reaction communications capabilities to re - mands and units in the field. spond to worldwide emergencies.

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Development of a centralized and inte- combat readiness. Its communication pro- grated operation and architecture proved grams accelerated integration of advanced essential for integrating manned, unmanned, beyond-line-of-sight terminals on “Global and space platforms and their communica- Hawk” platforms. AFCA increased Air Force tions infrastructure. It was also vital for efficiency with plans to integrate air-, assessing how well planned programs actu- ground-, and space-based assets by extend- ally delivered capabilities and finding the ing network capabilities to aircraft cockpits. gaps and seams in C4ISR capabilities; fur- It has developed standards for collaborative ther, it comprised a key element in managing tools linking warfighting concepts and capa- budget decisions. Lacking the in-house capa- bilities with support systems and networks, bility to create an accurate “infostructure” security testing, and evaluation of systems architecture, in March 2003 AF/XI desig- that mitigated vulnerabilities prior to use in nated AFCA as chief architect for Air Force the field. networks, responsible for developing archi- Lionel E. Timmerman and Larry R. Morrison tecture, standards, and policies for informa- See also Air Force Communications Service tion transport. This included computing and (AFCS), Air Force Communications security as well as network operations plan- Command (AFCC) (1961–1991); Air Force ning, programming, and acquisition. AFCA Research Laboratory, Rome, New York; developed the first Air Force–wide network Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS); Army Airways Communications architecture (dubbed “Constellation Net”). It System, Airways and Air Communications also became the lead agency for network- Service (AACS, 1938–1961); Defense centric airborne communications, and devel- Information Systems Agency (DISA); Global oping and maintaining both terrestrial and Command and Control System (GCCS); Gulf airborne architectures to support Air Staff War (1990–1991); Iraq War (2003–Present) capabilities. Source AFCA influenced the development and Air Force Communications Agency (AFCA). use of key air and space communications Home page. [Online information; retrieved and information technologies. The agency December 2006.] http://public.afca.af.mil/. played a crucial role in the construction of forward-based coalition air operations cen- ters for combat operations in the Middle Air Force Communications East, U.S.-based operations support centers Service (AFCS), Air Force aiding those operations, and network oper- Communications Command ations and security centers providing both (AFCC) (1961–1991) management and security for network links among vital centers. AFCA designed a By the early 1960s, U.S. Air Force leaders gen- secure network providing coalition partners erally agreed that the importance of commu- access to critical command-and-control (C2) nications in command and control dictated systems and information, and immeasurably that Air Force communications required a sin- aided problem analysis by accurately assess- gle manager. On 1 July 1961, the Air Force ing application performance and impact on relieved the Airways and Air Communica- Air Force networks, resolving battlefield per- tions Service (AACS) from assignment to the formance issues, and validating network Military Air Transport Service, redesignated

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AACS as the Air Force Communications Ser- designed to be loaded in a C-130 transport vice (AFCS), and made it a major air com- airplane and operated from within the air- mand. AFCS headquarters was located at craft after landing. Air Force communicators Scott Air Force Base, Illinois (just east of St. continued development of long-haul com- Louis), where it remained except for 1970– munications systems during the 1960s, such 1977 when it was relocated to Richards- as tropospheric scatter communications sys- Gebaur Air Force Base, Missouri. tems with installations in Europe; the Auto- Given its mission of being the sole man- mated Weather Network, which passed ager of air traffic control, on-base communi- meteorological data around the globe; and cations, long-haul communications, and the first base distribution system, a comput- emergency mission support, AFCS soon erized storage and forwarding data commu- assumed those roles for most of the major air nications network. commands with the notable exceptions of War in Southeast Asia created new de- Strategic Air Command and Air Defense mands on Air Force communicators for a Command, whose communications infra- broad spectrum of intra- and intertheater structures did not come under AFCS until capabilities. In 1966, AFCC personnel in- the late 1970s. In 1962, the Department of stalled the first satellite communications ter- Defense also transferred the Alaska Commu- minal in South Vietnam using a synchronous nication System (ACS), which supported communications satellite to provide one both military and civilian telecommunica- voice and one record circuit between Saigon tions needs, from the U.S. Army Signal Corps and Hawaii. to AFCS. AFCS operated the Alaska system Air Force communicators worked on hun- until its sale to private owners in 1971. dreds of communications projects throughout Air Force communications in the 1960s the 1970s. These included microwave and responded to the development of electronic cable modernization programs, improved tro- computers with improvements. In the first pospheric scatter transmission systems, high- half of the 1960s, AFCS personnel oversaw frequency transmission upgrades, solid-state the installation and operation of large data electronics equipment renewal, and contin- transfer systems, such as the Air Force Data ued satellite communications development. Communications System, at that time the In 1977, the first operational use was made of world’s largest. This system was the first the global Air Force Satellite Communications increment of what eventually became the System, designed to carry Air Force commu- Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN). nications into the 1990s. AFCS personnel installed, operated, and In 1978 AFCS was given increased respon- maintained the defense long-haul, nonsecure sibilities for the design, acquisition, operation, voice system, the Automatic Voice Network and maintenance of Air Force automatic data (AUTOVON), at air bases beginning in the processing systems. Soon thereafter, Air Force early 1960s. leadership became concerned that the service The Air Force increased its emphasis on was falling behind in the employment of the advancement of quick reaction commu- information technology. In 1984, the Air Force nications capabilities. In the 1960s, AFCS chief of staff directed the integration of the planners developed Talking Bird, an air- communications, data automation, and office transportable communications package automation disciplines across the Air Force to

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take advantage of the merger of these tech- data communications while aboard special nologies. AFCC became the single manager mission aircraft anywhere in the world. The for the Air Force’s information systems. AFCC need for secure, rapid-response communica- undertook major data automation efforts in tions continued. AFCC developed a small, the 1980s to replace older computers and pro- quickly deployable communications team, vide standardized computer systems. For Hammer ACE, in the 1980s to provide secure example, the Phase IV program brought the communications support for emergencies overhaul effort to all Air Force installations to and contingencies. support base functions including supply, Changes in the Cold War climate caused maintenance, personnel, and finance. Air Force leadership to reconsider AFCC’s The development of local area networks single manager role in the late 1980s. Por- and office information systems in the 1980s tions of the command’s mission were re- marked a new period in Air Force communi- turned to the major air commands. In the cations. With their installation, members of early 1990s the Air Force dramatically re- the Air Force were able to directly communi- structured, and AFCC was one of several cate with other Air Force personnel on base function-oriented organizations to be di- and across the service; the necessity to vested of most of its field operations, which employ centralized base communications were returned to the major air commands. centers diminished. Among other modifica- AFCC was realigned as a field operating tion efforts, in 1981 AFCC contracted for the agency of Headquarters United States Air upgrade to digital telephone switching sys- Force on 1 July 1991, though the organization tems. AFCC began meteor burst communi- retained its name for several more years. cations testing in 1986 and had a system in James A. Moyers operation in 1987. The design of the Defense See also Air Force Communications Agency Switched Network, the AUTOVON’s re - (AFCA, 1991–2006); Alaska Communications placement, was authorized at the same time, System; Army Airways Communications and an improved weather data distribution System, Airways and Air Communications system, the Automated Weather Distribution Service (AACS, 1938–1961); Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN); Fiber Optics; Meteor System, became operational. Burst Communications (MBC); Satellite Technological advancements—such as Communications; Tropospheric Scatter; fiber optics, T-carriers (broadband cable Vietnam War (1959–1975) connections), and digital transmission and switching systems—were exploited within Sources Miller, Linda G., and Cora J. Holt. 1989. Window the Base Information Digital Distribution to the Future: Air Force Communications System program to modernize base commu- Command Chronology, 1938–1988. Scott Air nications, providing increased capacity and Force Base, IL: Air Force Communications more reliable circuits for both voice and data Command Office of History. transmission. Members of AFCC were also Morrison, Larry R. 1997. From Flares to Satellites: A Brief History of Air Force Communications. increasingly involved in joint service com- Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Communi- munications programs such as Mystic Star, cations Command Office of History. the worldwide, high-frequency communi- Snyder, Thomas S., ed. 1991. Air Force Communi- cations network that supported U.S. govern- cations Command, 1938–1991: An Illustrated ment and military officials with voice and History, 3rd ed. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air

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Force Communications Command Office of ducted there came tropospheric scatter and History. high-frequency radios, satellite communica- tions, and standards for electronic reliability. The first intercontinental satellite communi- Air Force Research Laboratory cation transmission took place on 12 August (Rome, New York) 1960 when RADC scientists and engineers transmitted radio and radar signals between Technology using the electromagnetic spec- Trinidad in the British West Indies and trum to disseminate and process information Floyd, New York, via the Echo I passive com- ranks among the most critical to U.S. Air munication satellite. Rome researchers have Force needs. The 900 military and civilian contributed to such aerospace systems as the employees of what is now called the Air Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, the Force Research Laboratory Information Distant Early Warning Line, the Semi-Auto- Directorate, Rome (New York) Research Site mated Ground Environment system, the Air- aim to advance information technology. borne Warning and Control System, the first The historical roots of the Rome site stretch Air Force telephone switching facility, and back to World War I. In 1917 the U.S. Army the first operational Russian-to-English Signal Corps set up a radio laboratory at Fort translator. The Internet and related technol- Monmouth, New Jersey, consolidating all its ogy owes much to Rome too, as RADC electronics laboratories there in 1929. On served as one of the sites for DARPANET, a 1 February 1945, the Signal Corps, concluding forerunner to the Internet. Phased array that aviation electronics required special radars, computer memories, machine lan- emphasis, created Watson Laboratories from guage translation, and photonics became parts of the Fort Monmouth laboratory com- synonymous with Rome as well. plex. Rome became the site of part of this In 1990, RADC was renamed Rome Labo- research and development tradition when the ratory, and it became the Information Direc- Air Force, wanting to consolidate its electron- torate in 1997 upon the consolidation of Air ics work, moved Watson Laboratories to Force laboratories into the single Air Force Rome in order to establish an electronics and Research Laboratory. Recent research has upper atmospheric research center. emphasized “information fusion,” princi- The Cold War rivalry with the Soviet pally as a means for improving combat Union had begun, and electronically gener- awareness, decision making, and targeting. ated information formed a key piece of the Thomas W. Thompson emerging strategy of nuclear deterrence, giv- ing the move to Rome special significance. See also Airborne Warning and Control System Watson Laboratories personnel and equip- (AWACS); Communication Satellites; ment began moving to Rome in November DARPANET; Internet; Language Trans - 1950, and by 12 June 1951 the new organiza- lation; Satellite Communications; Semi- tion, Rome Air Development Center (RADC), Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE); Spectrum Frequencies; Tropospheric Scatter was operating on the grounds of Griffiss Air Force Base. Source The tradition of technology development Information Directorate, Air Force Research soon thrived in Rome. Out of research con- Laboratory. Home page. [Online information;

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retrieved April 2007.] http://www.rl bought from the United States, developed on .af.mil/. their own, or purchased from other nations. These include Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia. An improved AWACS version has Airborne Warning and Control been developed by the North Atlantic Treaty System (AWACS) Organization. Israel manufactured its own version (the Phalcon), which it has used and The Airborne Warning and Control System sold to other nations including India and (AWACS) allows controllers to monitor all Chile. Both Russia and China developed aircraft flying within a 200-mile radius. Fur- AWACS. Sweden, Mexico, and Brazil have ther, these controllers can manage an air bat- their own smaller versions. Australia and tle by communicating to friendly aircraft Turkey contracted for a related airborne radar where targets are located and plotting their and communication system mounted in a interception routes so they can destroy the twin-engine Boeing 737, and the first entered targets. Its intrinsic worth as a military sys- service in 2006. The British, Italian, and Indian tem has also given it an importance in diplo- air forces have smaller helicopter-based air- matic relations and in the important area of borne early-warning systems for tactical arms sales. application. The origins of the AWACS can be traced The American AWACS development back to World War II. Radar operated from began in 1975, and the first AWACS-enabled ships could pick up enemy aircraft ap - aircraft was deployed two years later. Typi- proaching but only within a fairly short cally the radar is mounted on a large air range. By 1944 it was determined that the transport such as the Boeing 707 (used by the best solution would be to mount a radar on United States), 737, or 767. Other nations aircraft, and by the end of the war some have used the Russian Ilyushin Il-76 or Gulf- planes had been developed for this capabil- stream aircraft. They are usually character- ity. It took years of research and develop- ized by a rotating radar dome mounted atop ment before a dependable and effective the aircraft. A crew of four flies the aircraft, system was created. which carries from thirteen to eighteen sys- In essence, the AWACS is an airborne elec- tems operators. Range depends on not only tronic command-and-control (C2) system the equipment but the height at which the based around a radar. That radar allows the aircraft is flying. The range for the U.S. crew of the plane to track and identify AWACS is between 200 and 250 miles with friendly and hostile aircraft, ships, and the ability to track up to 250 aircraft simulta- ground targets. Onboard crew can identify neously and to plot intercepts for up to 15 potential targets, be alerted to direct attacks, friendly aircraft. and communicate with other aircraft or orga- Although American AWACS aircraft are nizations on the ground. Depending on the based in the continental United States, they specific model, it can defeat electronic coun- have been used throughout the world. Early termeasures (antijamming) or apply its own. on they were used in Europe to monitor The United States has more than thirty aircraft activity in East Germany, Poland, AWACS aircraft in its inventory. Several and Czechoslovakia. The Israelis have used other nations have an AWACS that was them extensively, beginning with monitoring

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the conflict in Lebanon in 1982. AWACS air- Systems Agency; Russia/Soviet Union: Air craft supported American military efforts in Force; United Kingdom: Royal Air Force Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), the Gulf Sources War (1990–1991), and Iraq (since 2003). In Armistead, Leigh. 2002. AWACS and Hawkeyes: 1990, they were used extensively to monitor The Complete History of Airborne Early air traffic in South America as part of the Warning Aircraft. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks antidrug effort. They were also used in the International. Balkans, most notably during the NATO air Benson, J., and T. Holmes. 1996. USAF for the campaign against Serbia in 1999. 21st Century. Botley, Oxford, UK: Osprey. Boeing. “E-3 AWACS Overview.” [Online Because the AWACS provides its users information; retrieved December 2006.] with the abilities to coordinate and control http://www.boeing.com/defense- air warfare, it has acquired an importance space/ic/awacs/index.html. beyond its usefulness over a battlefield. Pos- Gordon, Yefim. 2006. Soviet/Russian AWACS session of the AWACS (or denial by refusing Aircraft. Hersham, Surrey, UK: Midland Publishing. sales) is the product of and can affect foreign Laham, Nicholas. 2002. Selling AWACS to Saudi relations. In the early 1980s, the sale of Arabia: The Reagan Administration and the AWACS aircraft by the United States to Balancing of America’s Competing Interests in Saudi Arabia created a controversy with the Middle East. Westport, CT: Praeger. Israelis. The sale eventually went through, Tessmer, Arnold Lee. 1998. Politics of Compro- much to the benefit of the United States and mise: NATO and AWACS. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press. its allies in the Gulf War a decade later. In 1982 Britain sought the loan of the AWACS to assist in its efforts to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina. Concerned with its Airmobile Communications relationships in Latin America, the United States turned down that request. While the During military operations in South Vietnam British won that conflict, AWACS capability in the early 1960s, command and control of might have prevented loss of a British war- tactical forces assumed new importance. Mil- ship to Argentine Exocet missiles. More itary operations conducted by the Viet Cong recently, the United States opposed the were mainly hit-and-run tactics against small Israelis’ selling the AWACS to China because advisory American units and the South Viet- of its possible use against Taiwan. The Chi- namese army in jungle areas. Command and nese obtained a Russian system and then control necessitated an aerial command post replaced it with one of their own. from which a Vietnamese commander, Robert Stacy together with his American adviser and a limited staff, could get quickly to an area See also Airmobile Communications; Airplanes; under attack. Australia: Royal Australian Corps of Signals; That procedure often meant briefing reac- China, People’s Republic of; Computer; tion forces en route to the objective, coordi- Electronic Countermeasures/ Electronic nating with other friendly forces, and Warfare (ECM/EW); Falklands Conflict (1982); Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF); providing additional support as needed—in Israel; North Atlantic Treaty Organization short, using several radios at the same time. (NATO) Communications & Information The commander and his staff had to compete

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with the high noise level in the cabin to talk Vietnam, the 11th Air Assault Division was to each other and to crew members. An early activated at Fort Benning, Georgia, on 15 attempt to meet these needs was made by February 1963 and given a high priority on lashing three FM radios together in the aircraft personnel and equipment to develop new passenger compartment and mounting the airmobile concepts and procedures. When antennas at a 45-degree angle on the landing the question of air versus ground radios skids. Although successful, the scheme was arose, the division chose ground radios like awkward and lacked the needed very high those used by ground maneuver units in the frequency (VHF) and high-frequency single- helicopter command consoles. It permitted sideband radios. And the rigged method rapid replacement of damaged or inopera- failed to provide for communications within tive radios at almost any supply point or the helicopter. battalion maintenance facility. It also eased In early 1963, the Army Concept Team in the problem of obtaining spare parts. There South Vietnam defined requirements for an were greater operational advantages over aerial command post for command control the aircraft radios in that ground radios were of ground and air operations. The plan was compatible and had a greater range. approved by higher authority, and four com- The U.S. Army Electronics Research and mand post communications system consoles Development Laboratories at Fort Mon- for UH-1B Huey helicopters were built. Each mouth, New Jersey, built the first prototype included an operations table and a compact to division specifications. It was delivered in five-position interphone system indepen- March 1964 and, after testing and modifica- dent of the aircraft interphone but capable of tion, was finally designated the Airborne entry into that system. Each console also Communications Control AN/ASC-5. Fif- provided equipment for two different FM teen more were built for the division (which radio channels. became the 1st Cavalry Division in South The first consoles arrived in South Vietnam Vietnam). Adaptations placed this special- in December 1963 and were issued to two ized equipment in fixed wing aircraft as well. Army aviation units for evaluation. These The unique airborne equipment ensured units found the original design to be too communication with all support units and ambitious. Because of the size and weight of permitted planning and execution of tactical the console, two single seats normally occu- troop moves and, most importantly, the abil- pied by the aerial door gunners had to be ity to have immediate surveillance of the removed, and the additional weight upset battle area so that entire operations could the helicopter’s center of gravity. Neverthe- be directed from airborne command posts. less, when the map board and table were The use of an airborne tactical operations eliminated and the single-sideband radio relo- center was new to command and control on cated, the console performed so well that in the battlefield but would become part of the July 1964 the U.S. Military Assistance Com- scheme of maneuver for U.S. forces. The idea mand, Vietnam put in an urgent request for a that grew out of operational needs in South helicopter command post for each Viet- Vietnam remains today a big part of com- namese division and one corps. manding and controlling military operations While improvements in air mobility oper- on the battlefield. ations were being tested and evaluated in

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During the short 1990–1991 Gulf War, aer- Bergen, John D. 1986. Military Communications: ial command and control used the UH-60 A Test for Technology. Washington, DC: Black Hawk helicopter, though with com- Government Printing Office, Center for Military History Publication 91-12. munications technology designed during the Myer, Charles R. 1982. Division-Level Communi- Vietnam War. The command-and-control cations, 1962–1973. Washington, DC: Govern- suite only provided line-of-sight single- ment Printing Office, Center for Military frequency voice communications, so aircrews History Publication 90-11. had to rely on maps and other devices to Reinzi, Thomas M. 1972. Communications- Electronics, 1962–1970. Washington, DC: navigate and obtain battlefield intelligence. Government Printing Office, Center for The system was cumbersome, incompatible Military History Publication 90-9-1. with the current generation of frequency- hopping tactical radios, and lacked provision for receiving or transmitting digital data. For the Iraq War, beginning in 2003, the Airplanes deep airborne assault by the 101st Airborne Division featured a jump (mobile tactical) The value of aircraft for military communi- command post that provided communica- cations became obvious almost from the start tions support. Known as the C2 (for com- of flying. In particular, the needs of the two mand and control), the UH-60 helicopter world wars and the long Cold War pushed provided ultra-high frequency communica- the speed of technological development. tions, high-frequency radio, single-channel Late in 1907 the U.S. Army Signal Corps tactical satellite links, and FM communica- issued a specification for a heavier-than-air tions—the same as ground forces. These heli- machine for testing. Within a year, the corps copters were key conduits between the experimented with Wright brothers’ aircraft leading edge of the division’s operations and at Fort Myer, Virginia, outside Washington. main headquarters, depending on which An airfield and training program were estab- was in charge at different times. The C2 air- lished at College Park, Maryland, north of craft is more than a communications relay as Washington. Until 1911, however, the U.S. it can also serve as a flying command post Army had but one pilot and aircraft at any capable of carrying senior commanders. given time. Early work was also undertaken Danny Johnson by the major European powers, especially Britain, Germany, and France. The commu- See also Airplanes; Fort Monmouth, New nications problem, of course, was how to get Jersey; Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq War what information a pilot could gather to the (2003—Present); Radio; Vietnam War ground rapidly. (1959–1975) In World War I aircraft were used for observation, flying dispatches (and couriers), Sources scouting duties—and soon spotting targets Ackerman, Robert K. 2003. “Information Technology Drives Tip of Airborne Spear.” for artillery. Communication from ground Signal (June). [Online article; retrieved to air at first was limited to symbols based on February 2006.] http://www.afcea.org/ white cloth panels laid out on the ground. signal/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=204 The airplane could send signals to the &z=40. ground by means of colored lights, or simply

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by dropping weighted notes. Experimental steadily more proficient (gaining greater use of aircraft wireless telegraphy took place range and more interference control) and by both the Royal Naval Air Service and the aided navigation as well as communication. Royal Flying Corps on the eve of war, but By 1939, the major fighting powers had all heavy radio equipment limited its applica- improved their aircraft radio communication tion. By 1915, extensive British artillery spot- systems and capabilities, despite budget lim- ting was made possible by lighter-weight itations. To a far greater degree than during spark-gap wireless transmitters. Within two World War I in 1914–1918, fighting aircraft years, British aircraft were carrying much were directed from the ground. Both the improved vacuum tube wireless and under- United States and Britain involved scientists took some wireless telephony (voice) signal- in steadily improving their aircraft radio ing as well. Radio signals were difficult to equipment while Germany froze its stan- discern in the noisy open aircraft of the dardized designs early in the war and was period, and at first, some pilots feared being thus increasingly outclassed. As in the earlier electrocuted. German aircraft wireless tech- world war, aircraft helped in artillery spot- nology exceeded that of the Allies early in ting as well as other communication and the war, then lagged badly, but its largely courier duties. The U.S. Army Artillery Telefunken-made equipment was the equal developed its own aerial eyes after 1942. of the Allies by at least 1917. Germany made extensive use of radio beam Despite budget limitations in all countries, technology to guide its night bombers the interwar years saw continued improve- toward British targets. Unlike American (and ment of aircraft radio systems, though inter- Japanese) practice, German radios were not ference from their growing number was a mounted on shock-absorbing bases but serious issue throughout the 1920s. This was directly on aircraft bulkheads. They were partially resolved by growing use of short- among the first radios to make use of ribbon wave frequencies and, by the late 1930s, the interconnecting cables (similar to those in VHF band as well. Antenna design was modern computers) and were both compact another focus of concern, as trailing out 150 and usually well constructed. To protect their to 200 feet of antenna wire behind an air- radio designs from capture, Luftwaffe equip- plane had obvious operational shortcom- ment housings often included externally ings. Two-way radios were added to Army mounted explosives for emergency self- aircraft when the service flew U.S. domestic destruction. By 1944, Allied bombing of Ger- mails in early 1934. A squadron of ten Martin man and Japanese air control facilities went bombers flew from Washington to Alaska in a long way toward destroying the enemy’s summer 1934 and, thanks to developing ability to effectively communicate with radio facilities, was never out of touch with defending fighter aircraft. ground controllers. This precedent led in The successful 1948–1949 Berlin Airlift November 1938 to the creation of the Army was made possible by what had been Airways Communications System to cen- learned during the war about effective radio tralize development and operation of mili- communication and air traffic control. tary air communications. The Signal Corps Increasing jet speeds of military aircraft after retained responsibility for improving the the war made radio communications even radios themselves. Aircraft radios grew more vital, as were radio-based navigation

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and command structures. The pace of tech- (unpiloted) aircraft were used for reconnais- nological change made systems obsolete sance and communications in several Middle much faster than before. Application of the East wars. Thanks largely to developments in transistor in the 1950s as well as growing the missile and space field, aircraft radios use of mainframe computers in all electronic became both smaller and more proficient. systems helped keep pace. The Semi- By the 1980s digital services and equipment Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) were steadily replacing their analog forbears. radar and control centers, installed from Computers and information technology 1957 on, were among the first to try to tie became a central driver in military aviation much of this together. During the Vietnam planning around the world. War, regular updating of modes of commu- Christopher H. Sterling nication was central to extensive air opera- tions. So was increasing awareness that See also Air Force Communications Agency aircraft radio signals could be intercepted (AFCA, 1991–2006); Air Force Communica- and read, forcing greater attention to the use tions Service (AFCS), Air Force Communica- tions Command (AFCC) (1961–1991); of coded communication or radio silence. Airborne Warning and Control System A special Cold War application of aircraft (AWACS); Airmobile Communications; was their use as airborne communication Airships and Balloons; Army Airways centers. For nearly four decades, the Air- Communications System, Airways and Air borne Command Post, also called “Looking Communications Service (AACS, 1938–1961); Glass,” was always ready to direct bombers Berlin Airlift (1948–1949); Germany: Air Force; Global Positioning System (GPS); and missiles from the air should ground- Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF); Radio based command centers become inoperable. Silence; Semi-Automatic Ground Environ- The Looking Glass (so named because the ment (SAGE); Solid State Electronics; United mission mirrored ground-based command, Kingdom: Royal Air Force; Vietnam War control, and communications) began 3 Feb- (1959–1975) ruary 1961, and for nearly thirty years (until 24 July 1990), a Looking Glass aircraft was in Sources flight twenty-four hours a day. For another Anonymous. 1916. “Wireless Equipped Aeroplanes in Warfare.” The Wireless Age III: eight years (until 1 October 1998) it remained 6 (March): 409–421. on ground or airborne alert at all times. The Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. “Military Telegraphy in aircraft used was an EC-135 (a modified Boe- the Air.” In History of Telegraphy, chap. 10, ing 707) jammed with the latest communica- 348–388. London: Institution of Electrical tion equipment. When airborne, Looking Engineers. Edwards, C. P. 1944. “Enemy Airborne Radio Glass was commanded by an Air Force gen- Equipment.” Journal of the Institution of eral or Navy admiral. E-6 aircraft (based on Electrical Engineers 91 (3A): 44–66. the same airframe) have somewhat replaced Johnson, T., Jr. 1920. “Naval Aircraft Radio.” the Looking Glass aircraft, serving as air- Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 8 borne means of launching land or submarine (February): 32–38. missiles. Lansford, Willis R. 1943. “Aircraft Communica- tion in World War I.” Radio News 29 (June): Over the past two decades, aircraft commu- 50–54, 208–216. nications have been increasingly based Mikesh, Robert C. 2004. “Radios.” In Japanese on solid-state technology, automation, and Aircraft Equipment: 1940–1945. Atglen, PA: data-supplemented voice channels. Drone Schiffer Publishing.

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Morrison, Larry R. 1997. From Flares to Satellites: observation and intelligence, a task most A Brief History of Air Force Communications. successfully taken up by Thaddeus Lowe Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Communi- from mid-1861 to 1863. Both the Union and cations Agency Office of History. Orme, Robert. 1920. “Radiotelegraphy and Confederate armies made extensive use of Aviation.” In The Yearbook of Wireless Telegra- observation balloons early in the Civil War phy and Telephony: 1920, 988–994. London: but activity stopped for various reasons in Wireless Press. 1863. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870– Raines, Edgar F., Jr. 2000. Eyes of Artillery: The 1871), nearly sixty-five balloons were used to Origins of Modern U.S. Army Aviation in World carry messages, people, and pigeons (who War II. Army History Series. Washington, DC: Center of Military History. would return with messages from outside) Roberts, Henry W. 1945. Aviation Radio. New out of Paris during the siege of the city. The York: Morrow. French reopened their balloon school in 1871, as did the British two decades later. Indeed, balloons were standard equipment in both the British and German armies by the Airships and Balloons late 1890s. Many of the world’s navies also experimented with the use of balloons for Theorizing about and experimenting with scouting. large aerial balloons for military communica- The Army Signal Corps created its first tion dates at least to the 1790s. Tethered and balloon section in 1892. A balloon was briefly free balloons were used extensively by both used by the U.S. Army to signal intelligence sides during the American Civil War for during the Spanish-American War’s Battle of artillery spotting and intelligence gathering. San Juan Hill in 1898. Signal Corps balloon During and between both world wars, air- activity, based at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, was ships, or dirigibles, of several nations used revived in 1907 when two balloons were pur- radio as a prime means of communication chased. By 1918 the Army had two balloon with ground commanders and (in the case of companies operating aerial telephones on the U.S. Navy) with scouting airplanes car- the Western Front, providing general intelli- ried aboard. gence and artillery spotting. The balloons Benjamin Franklin was among those made more than 1,600 ascensions and spent who predicted the military use of the man- more than 3,000 hours in the air. carrying balloons first demonstrated in Based on their extensive early twentieth- France in the 1780s. The French first applied century experiments, from the inception of tethered balloons to gather military intelli- World War I in 1914, German Zeppelins gence in mid-1794 (messages were dropped made use of both spark-gap (despite the to the ground) and with varying degrees of danger of causing a fire in the hydro - success operated two balloon companies for gen-filled airship) low and medium fre- five years. Similar applications were pro- quency radios and radio direction-finding posed for U.S. Army operations in the Indian aids on their raids over England. Many of wars of the 1830s and 1840s and the United the Telefunken radios (which used five differ- States’ siege of Veracruz, Mexico, in 1846, ent frequency bands) were converted Navy though no action was taken. thousand-watt transmitters housed in sound- Several pioneers offered use of balloons to proof operating rooms or sharing the forward Union forces in the American Civil War for control gondola.

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During World War II, dirigible airships were used in antisubmarine warfare along the coast and escorting convoys. They could destroy German U-boats by matching their slow surface speed and then bombarding them with depth charges. The dirigible USS Casablanca is seen on escort duty in 1943. (National Archives)

Not long before World War II, Germany’s carried a Marconi spark wireless apparatus nominally civilian Hindenburg (LZ-129) car- (apparently the first airship so equipped) ried two military radios in 1936–1937. One, that could transmit up to 30 miles. Over the called a “bread bin” because of its shape, was next two years, several wireless-equipped made from a very light alloy (probably zinc) airships were used for observation on army and weighed just under 20 kilograms. The E maneuvers. Most carried carrier pigeons in 318S was an all-wave Telefunken receiver case the wireless unit failed. By the time ranging more than 15 kHz to 20 MHz and ten fighting began in World War I, transmission bands. The second Graf Zeppelin (LZ-130, the distances were up to 130 miles, and two air- last rigid airship) carried extensive radio ships were radio equipped. By 1917 British equipment on its August 1939 flights along rigid airships carried radios using vacuum the British east coast, seeking transmissions tubes, not the earlier and more dangerous from English radar installations. spark-gap transmitters, as well as pigeons to The British began experimenting with communicate with the ground. The British wireless aboard army balloons as early as R.34 rigid airship maintained wireless con- 1908. By 1911 the British army’s Beta airship tact throughout its transatlantic round-trip

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flight of mid-1919 (the first double crossing), Ege, Lennart. 1974. Balloons and Airships. New sending or receiving some 20,000 words and York: Macmillan. reaching or hearing from receivers a thou- Maitland, E. M. 1920. “Wireless Log of H.M.A. R.34.” In The Log of H.M.A. R.34: Journey to sand miles distant. America and Back, 143–166. London: Hodder After operating radio-equipped blimps on & Stoughton. convoy and antisubmarine patrols beginning Popular Science Monthly. 1918. “How the in 1917, the U.S. Navy used radio aboard its Zeppelin Raiders Are Guided by Radio several rigid airships from 1924 to 1935. Los Signals.” Popular Science Monthly (April): 632–634. Angeles (ZRS-3) had a well-equipped radio Tierney, R. K. 1965. “Offspring of the Signal facility and used telephone links for onboard Corps—The Balloon, Dirigible, and communication. Airplane.” In The Story of the U.S. Army Akron (ZRS-4) and Macon (ZRS-5), the ulti- Signal Corps, edited by Max L. Marshall, 127– mate Navy rigid airships of the early 1930s, 135. New York: Franklin Watts. used air-to-ground Westinghouse radios in a Woods, David L. 1965. “The Military Balloon,” In A History of Tactical Communications radio room built into the hull above the Techniques, chap. X. Orlando, FL: Martin- external control room. Both experimented Marietta. with radio communication and direction finding with the handful of scouting air- planes each carried. Portable ultra-high fre- quency radio was used to communicate with Alaska Communications System the ground in mooring operations. The U.S. Navy’s extensive World War II Communications in the vast reaches of fleet of smaller nonrigid blimps were all Alaska began with indigenous people thou- radio equipped to aid in their scouting, anti- sands of years ago. Russian settlers in the submarine, and convoy protection roles. nineteenth century brought European means Radio transmitting and receiving equipment of connecting their coastal communities. Lit- was constantly updated as some of these tle changed with the American purchase of served until 1962 as off-shore early-warning the territory in 1867 as there were few set- radar and antisubmarine platforms. tlers and thus little military need. The rush Christopher H. Sterling for gold at the end of the nineteenth century rapidly changed Alaska’s outlook. See also Airplanes; Army Signal Corps; Lowe, Organized American military communica- Thaddeus, S. C. (1832–1913) tions in Alaska began in May 1900 when Con- gress appropriated a half-million dollars for Sources Althorpe, William F. 1990. Sky Ships: A History of the establishment of a military telegraph sys- the Airship in the United States Navy. New tem and cable lines in the then territory. The York: Orion Books. system would come to be known as the Wash- Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. “Military Telegraphy in ington Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph the Air: The Dirigible.” In History of Telegra- System (WAMCATS). By June 1903, the U.S. phy, 348–350. London: Institution of Electrical Army completed the first trans-Alaska tele- Engineers. Christopher, John. 2004. Balloons at War: graph line from Eagle to Nome, a project Gasbags, Flying Bombs, and Cold War Secrets. headed by then Lieutenant Billy Mitchell, Stroud, UK: Tempus. who declared that Alaska was thus open to

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civilization. WAMCATS was operated by sol- WHITE Alaska Integrated Communications diers assigned to signal depot companies at and Electronics (WHITE ALICE or WACS), a forts in the territory. From the start, however, tropospheric and microwave communica- the system served a broad variety of users. Of tions system used throughout Alaska from the 300,000 messages being handled by 1906, May 1958 until 1979 (when it was replaced by only about one-fifth were military in nature. satellite links). The twenty-five WACS tro- The “talking wire” was linked to a submarine pospheric stations (ultimately there would be cable that eventually connected Seattle with twice as many, covering much of the state Juneau, Sitka, and Valdez. and the Aleutian Islands) were built for $140 Overland lines soon stretched from million by Western Electric and took 3,500 Seward to Anchorage and north into the people about three years to complete. interior, following the Alaskan Railroad. Recognizing the growing commercial Repairmen traveled by dogsled as they value of the network as the state expanded checked on the lines. The WAMCATS com- and population grew, the system was pur- mander reported directly to the Army’s chief chased by RCA in 1971. As RCA Alascom, signal officer, but little technical improve- the network’s capacity was greatly expanded ment in or expansion of the system took thanks to RCA’s major involvement in tele- place during the tight-budget interwar years. vision. The first intrastate satellite television In 1936 WAMCATS was redesignated as the links became available, and Alascom pro- Alaska Communications System (ACS). vided communication links for the construc- Most of the major telegraph land lines had tion and operation of the Alaska oil pipeline been replaced by radio due to the high cost from the North Shore south 800 miles to of maintaining cable systems over the vast, Valdez. In 1979, Pacific Telecom purchased inhospitable expanse of Alaska. However, a Alascom and soon placed three communica- short resurgence arose in the use of cable tion satellites, the “Aurora” series, into orbit systems for security purposes during World in 1982, 1991, and 2000. All three are dedi- War II. It was during this time that the first cated solely to providing telecommunica- full duplex teletype system was established tions services to the state—the first such between Seattle and Alaska. In 1942, the network. An extensive system of rural wartime Alaska-Canada Highway (now the telecommunications soon developed, with Alaska Highway) was built in record time some satellite earth stations serving commu- (despite appalling conditions of weather and nities of as few as twenty-five people. Digital terrain) to ferry war materiel to Alaska, with switching was introduced in 1989, and four construction sites connected by the ACS. By years later the last telegraph office was 1950, the ACS operated thirty-two sites closed. AT&T purchased Alascom in 1994 across the territory and civilian use of the and, a decade later, operated a backbone of system continued to expand. microwave links and more than a hundred Three years after Alaska became a state, earth satellite stations. the ACS was transferred to the U.S. Air Force Danny Johnson (1 July 1962). The Air Force completed an See also American Telephone & Telegraph Co. upgrade to the ACS to include both micro - (AT&T); Communication Satellites; Meteor wave and tropospheric radio links. Origi- Burst Communications (MBC); Television; nally designed to connect several lines of Tropospheric Scatter early warning radar systems to the lower forty-eight states, the system was known as

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Sources 59th Signal Battalion. 2003. “Voice of the Arctic: Signal Corps Lineage in Alaska.” [Online information; retrieved January 2006.] http:// www.usarak.army.mil/59internet/Lineage .htm. Allen, June. 2005. “ACS Bids for KPU Telecom: ACS a Longtime Presence.” Sitnews, Stories in the News (Ketchikan). [Online article; retrieved January 2006.] http://www .sitnews.us/JuneAllen/ACSKPU/010505 _acs_kpu.html. AT&T Alascom. 2005. “Who We Are.” [Online information; retrieved January 2006.] http:// www.attalascom.com/about/profile .html. Geocities.com. “The White Alice Communica- tions System.” [Online information; retrieved January 2006.] http://www.geocities.com/ ~billev/wacs/main.html. Signal Corps. 1911. Manual No. 2: Regulations for United States Military Telegraph Lines, Alaskan Cables, and Wireless Telegraph Stations, chaps. 9 and 10. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. A British naval signalman uses an Aldis lamp to Stokes, Carol. 1995. “Alaska: New Challenges communicate with a nearby vessel in the North Atlantic on Old Ground.” Army Communicator in 1941. This short-range mode of visual signaling (November). [Online article; retrieved allowed convoy ships to maintain radio silence, making January 2006.] http://www.gordon.army it harder for enemy submarines to find them. (Hulton- .mil/AC/WWII/alaska.htm. Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

the second generation of signaling in the Aldis Lamp Royal Navy (after the use of flag signals). Named after its inventor, A. C. W. Aldis, The signaling, or “Aldis,” lamp was a visual who died in 1953, the electric Aldis lamp signaling device for optical communication could flash intervals (or “pulses”) of light by (typically using Morse code) between ships. rapidly opening and closing metal shutters The Aldis was a focused lamp that could mounted in front of the lamp. These oper- produce intermittent bursts of light. ated either manually or, in later versions, The idea of flashing dots and dashes from automatically. The lamps were usually a shipboard lantern was first put into prac- equipped with some form of optical sight. tice by British Royal Navy Captain (later They were normally mounted on the mast- Vice Admiral) Philip Colomb in 1867. His heads of vessels; smaller, handheld versions original code (used by the Royal Navy for were also used. Power was usually provided seven years) differed from Morse’s, but by the vessel’s emergency generator, and the Morse code was eventually adopted with lamps were powerful enough to be used the addition of several special signals from during daylight hours. They had a sec- Colomb’s code. Such flashing lights made up ondary function as simple spotlights.

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Aldis lamps were used for more than a Alexander, Edward Porter hundred years. They provided secure com- (1835–1910) munications, especially valuable during periods of radio silence, such as with con- voys operating during both world wars Edward Porter Alexander was the first signal across the Atlantic. Aldis lamps were also officer of the Confederate Army and founder commonly used in early airport control tow- of the Confederate Signal Corps. He also ers in addition to or in lieu of radio signaling. served the Confederacy as an ordnance offi- Signaling to aircraft used red, green, or white cer but achieved fame as an artillery com- lights in either a steady or flashing form. mander, ending the war with the rank of The Royal Navy phased out active use of brigadier general of artillery. Aldis lamps in 1997 (along with the Morse Alexander was born 26 May 1835 in code), although by that time the devices had Wilkes County, Georgia. At an early age, he become largely ceremonial. They still appear determined to become a professional soldier on many naval vessels and are sometimes and achieved that goal in 1853 when he used in merchant shipping. Other modern entered West Point. He graduated third in naval forces have followed suit as technolog- the class of 1857 and was commissioned an ical advances in digital and infrared commu- engineer. In 1859 he was assigned to work nications have made the device obsolete. with army surgeon Albert J. Myer, who had Aldis lamps are perhaps the most publicly invented a new communication system seen mode of naval communications, show- using flags called the “wig-wag” system. ing up (often in the background) constantly in Myer and Alexander conducted experiments both documentary and dramatic movies near New York City to refine the system, about wartime convoys and naval action. which was eventually adopted by the U.S. Christopher H. Sterling Army as the first tactical communications system. See also Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945); During the secession crisis Alexander Infrared Signal Systems; Morse Code; Night Signals; Radio Silence; Searchlights/Signal sought appointment in the Confederate Blinkers; Talk Between Ships (TBS); United Army, where Jefferson Davis assigned him to Kingdom: Royal Navy P. G. T. Beauregard’s staff to provide the commander with signal capability. Alexan- Sources der quickly trained a detachment of signal- Aldis, A. C. W. 1920. “The Optical Theory of men and built signal towers throughout the Portable Daylight Signalling Lamps.” area of operations. His efforts paid off on 21 Transactions of the Optical Society 21 (March): 113–126. July 1861 during the Battle of Bull Run when, Kent, Captain Barrie. 1993. Signal! A History of while atop one of the signal towers, Alexan- Signalling in the Royal Navy. London: Hydon der discovered Union columns attempting to House. turn the Confederate left flank and notified Nalder, Major General R. F.. H. 1956. The Royal Beauregard using the wig-wag system. For Corps of Signals, London: Royal Signals the first time in U.S. history tactical informa- Institution. Royal Navy Signal Division. 1918. Handbook of tion had been transmitted more rapidly than Signalling. London: Royal Navy Signal a courier could ride and contributed to the Division. Confederate victory in that battle.

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After Bull Run, Alexander maintained con- 1910, he died in Savannah, Georgia. Alexan- trol of signal operations and assumed the der is remembered at the U.S. Army Signal duties as Joseph E. Johnston’s chief of ord- Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia, where the post nance. He took part in every battle in 1862 auditorium is named in his honor. and provided Robert E. Lee, general of the Steven J. Rauch Confederate Army, with supplies of ammuni- See also Airships and Balloons; American Civil tion throughout the so-called Seven Days War (1861–1865); Bull Run, Battle of (1861); engagements. In April 1862 the Confederate Confederate Army Signal Corps; Myer, Signal Corps was formally established but Albert James (1828–1880) Alexander turned down the position of chief signal officer. He did, however, take charge of Sources Alexander, E. Porter. 1989. Fighting for the the short-lived Confederate Air Force, consist- Confederacy, edited by Gary W. Gallagher. ing of an observation balloon, often tethered Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina to a river boat on the James River from which Press. he reconnoitered the enemy line. In effect, in Alexander, E. Porter. 1907 (reprinted 1993). addition to his other accomplishments, Military Memoirs of a Confederate. New York: Da Capo. Alexander had used the first aircraft carrier in Klein, Maury. 1971. Edward Porter Alexander. military operations. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Alexander constantly sought a field command, which he obtained in November 1862 when Lee appointed him to command an artillery battalion. Alexander perhaps American Civil War (1861–1865) achieved his greatest fame at Gettysburg when he was put in command of all First Military communications during the Amer- Corps artillery by General James Longstreet ican Civil War reflected a merging of existing to prepare the way for 15,000 infantrymen to communications technologies with military attack the Union line on 3 July 1863. Alexan- organizational structures that enabled more der was promoted to brigadier general on 26 effective command and control of armies at February 1864 and in June was wounded in the strategic, operational, and tactical levels the shoulder by a sharpshooter at Peters- of war. Prior to the Civil War, little thought burg. He continued to fight with the Confed- had been expended on the problems of com- erate Army until the surrender at municating on the battlefield. One who did Appomattox in April 1865. study this issue was Albert James Myer, an After the war, Alexander became involved assistant Army surgeon who sought the in the expanding railroad industry and even- acceptance of both new technology and com- tually became president of the Central of mitment of organizational resources to Georgia Railroad, earning the reputation as ensure information could be passed in a “the young Napoleon of the Railways.” more timely manner to commanders on the Alexander devoted his remaining years to battlefield. Myer had developed a system of writing and at age sixty-five wrote of his visual communication derived from the sign war experiences in Military Memoirs of a Con- language for the deaf that he had devised federate. In 1909 he suffered a stroke, which while a medical student. This “wig-wag” left him partially paralyzed, and on 28 April system used a single flag by day or a torch at

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night with the motion of the staff to the left, a distinct organization. When Alexander right, and vertical to indicate numbers, declined to serve as a chief signal officer, which substituted for the dots and dashes of William Norris was selected with control the electric telegraph. over a branch of ten officers, ten sergeants, This system could overcome the limita- and any additional soldiers required to per- tions of mounted messengers by sending form signal duties. The Confederate Army messages as events were occurring with a took a wider view than the Union Army visual range up to fifteen miles. By June regarding the duties of its Signal Corps, 1860, the U.S. Army had adopted the wig- which included electrical telegraphy, mili- wag system, signaling the initial step in the tary intelligence, espionage networks, naval establishment of American military commu- communications for blockade runners, and nications as an identifiable career. In addition experimentation with hot air balloons. to the wig-wag system, an extensive existing The relationship between the Signal Corps civilian electric telegraph system was under Myer and the USMTS under Stager adapted to the needs of war. In April 1861, was both complementary and contentious. with the cooperation of the telegraph compa- The USMTS telegraph capability reached nies, the U.S. government assumed control army- and corps-level commanders, but did of all telegraph lines leading into Washing- not reach down to the tactical units on the ton DC. Edward S. Sanford, president of the battlefield. To fill this gap, Myer established American Telegraph Company, helped orga- a small “flying telegraph” or field system nize a unit in the War Department to operate using the Beardslee magneto telegraph that and control the lines. Following the Union’s employed an alphabet dial and did not disastrous defeat at Bull Run, more effective require a skilled telegrapher. He wanted this efforts were made to harness the existing system to be light, rugged, and as simple as communications structure by establishing possible to ensure tactical mobility and ease the U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS), of operation. This highly mobile field train an organization staffed by civilians from the carried flags, night signals, rockets, the commercial telegraph industry. Anson Stager Beardslee telegraph, and ten miles of wire for of the Western Union Telegraph Company use in the combat zone, usually a distance of was selected as the chief of the service and five to eight miles. As the Union armies appointed a colonel. He developed a plan for moved forward, the field telegraph was telegraph lines to reach from Washington employed to establish forward communica- DC to the headquarters of every major inde- tions back to the more permanent installa- pendent army command. tions of the USMTS. Unlike the Union Army, the Confederate The complementary aspect ended in 1863 States organized the first independent when Myer challenged the status of the branch of signalmen in history. A deciding USMTS, arguing that the Signal Corps factor was the great success of the wig-wag should have control of all military communi- system under control of Captain Edward cations from the strategic to tactical level. Porter Alexander during the Battle of Bull When he sought to recruit trained telegra- Run in July 1861. On 19 April 1862 the Con- phers, Myer incurred the wrath of Secretary federate States Signal Corps was formed as of War Edwin Stanton and was relieved as

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chief signal officer. Stager was put in charge Brown, J. Willard. 1896. The Signal Corps, USA in of all military telegraphy, which then con- the War of the Rebellion. Boston: U.S. Veteran sisted of more than 950 civilians who oper- Signal Corps Association (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). ated 5,326 miles of telegraph line. Before Plum, William R. 1882. The Military Telegraph Myer was relieved, he did achieve the goal of During the Civil War in the United States. getting the Army to authorize a separate Sig- Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Company nal Corps branch in March 1863 to replace (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). the detail system and allow men to specialize Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. in communications without concern of being Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: U.S. recalled to a combat regiment. Army Center of Military History. During the course of the war, signal soldiers from both sides were deployed on high ground, in tree tops, on roof tops, and on sig- American Telephone & Telegraph nal towers to locate enemy troop movements Co. (AT&T) and help adjust friendly artillery fire. They served as intelligence gatherers who could For most of the twentieth century AT&T often intercept and read each other’s mes- served as the primary American telephone sages. Signalmen were dispatched on recon- service and manufacturing company. AT&T’s naissance missions to inspect enemy locations. long distance, local service, Western Electric Both also employed their communications manufacturing, and Bell Telephone Lab divi- personnel and systems in joint operations with sions all worked closely with government their navy. In the Union Army it became rou- and military entities, especially in wartime. tine to station signal officers and men aboard After America’s entry into World War I naval vessels operating along the rivers and on 6 April 1917, the U.S. Postal Service was coasts in support of ground operations. assigned supervisory control over domestic By the end of the Civil War, commanders telephone and telegraph operations (31 July on both sides and at all levels had grown to 1918–1 August 1919). Given the small pre- depend on the military communications sys- war size of the Army Signal Corps, AT&T tems in whatever form they took. The war and independent telephone personnel played had proven that specially trained signal sol- a substantial role in the buildup of people diers were required to harness the ever- and facilities in both Europe and the United growing communications technology that States in 1917–1918. Eventually fourteen Sig- allowed military leaders to effectively com- nal Corps “Bell Battalions” were made up mand and control armies over vast distances entirely of Bell System employees, organized and in a timely manner. according to their prewar local operating Steven J. Rauch companies. By the end of hostilities, their See also Alexander, Edward Porter (1835–1910); new European telephone network utilized Beardslee Telegraph; Bull Run, Battle of (1861); Confederate Army Signal Corps; 100,000 miles of wire, some 100 switch- Lincoln in the Telegraph Office; Myer, Albert boards, and more than 3,000 local stations. James (1828–1880); Stager, Anson (1825–1885); Manufacturing subsidiary Western Elec- U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS) tric supplied the first ship-to-shore radio telephone equipment for new destroyers Sources

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being built for the U.S. Navy. More than ter used to direct the entire defense effort, 2,000 radios were installed on United States installing the world’s largest private branch and British naval vessels and some remained exchange (PBX) at the Pentagon in 1942, with in use until 1930. Beginning in mid-1917, 13,000 lines of dial PBX equipment and 125 Western also developed small airborne operator positions. By 1944 roughly 85 per- radiotelephone sets that worked by wind- cent of contracts came from the federal driven generators, allowing voice communi- government—indeed, Western Electric pro- cation with aircraft. By the end of 1918, the vided more than 30 percent of all wartime company was also producing 25,000 vacuum electronic equipment. The scale of World tubes a week and had shipped 15,000 tele- War II is evident in that by 1944, Western phones, including wires and switches, for was supplying in two weeks communication use on the Western Front. Two battalions of equipment equivalent to that supplied dur- Signal Corps personnel were made up of ing all of World War I. Western’s technical employees. When the Department of Justice brought AT&T played an even more central role in suit in 1949 to break up AT&T, action on the World War II military communications. case was delayed when the Department of While the company’s domestic operations Defense intervened during the Korean crisis were not placed under governmental super- (1950–1953), arguing the integrated Bell vision, AT&T limited civilian use of its facil- System was vital to national security. AT&T ities to keep lines open for priority military remained intact in the settlement of the case use; for the same reason civilian telephone in 1956. Cold War efforts by Western Electric manufacture and installation was all but included elements of the Nike missile air banned from late 1942 to the end of the war. defense system and construction (starting at An underground transcontinental telephone the end of 1954) and operation of the Distant cable was opened for service in late 1942, Early Warning (DEW) Line radar line in Arc- allowing more secure communication links. tic Canada. The DEW Line’s electronics and By 1943 some 3,000 Bell operators ran 300 communications were completed across the Army switchboards in military facilities. Arctic in mid-1957, extended west through to Western Electric built communication links the Aleutian Islands two years later, and east along the developing Alaska Highway. From to Iceland by late 1961. Western was also a key 1942 to 1945, the firm made five million mil- contractor in the Air Force Semi-Automatic itary telephones including 300,000 sound- Ground Environment system of computer- powered phones, more than a half-million assisted air defense centers. By the end of the aircraft radio receivers, 1.4 million micro- 1950s, about 18,000 Western Electric employ- phones, thousands of teletypewriters, thou- ees were engaged in defense work alone. Dur- sands of switchboards, and about seventy ing the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Western different types of radar (between 30 and 40 installed emergency switchboards and long- percent of all U.S. radar manufactured dur- distance channels in Florida. ing the war). Most products were radio and Western turned increasingly to microwave wire communications equipment for war use and coaxial cable installation by the 1960s at Army and Navy bases and defense con- and began developing digital switching and tractors across the United States. Western other devices the next decade, while at the also created the communications nerve cen- same time downsizing its workforce. With

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the forced breakup of AT&T in 1984, Western ing that time communications technology became AT&T Technologies, which was advanced dramatically and was accompa- spun off as Lucent Technologies in 1996. In nied by gradual, and sometimes halting, 2005, AT&T, by then a much smaller firm practical implementation. These changes, than it had once been, was taken over by however, primarily affected strategic, not one of its former regional telephone compa- tactical, communications. nies, SBC, which later took on the better- The Revolutionary Army’s means of com- known name of its one-time parent, AT&T. munications were not essentially different When AT&T took over Bell South in late from those used by other armies. In May 1776, 2006 (leaving only Verizon and Qwest as George Washington established a communi- regional independent telephone companies), cations network of couriers from Long Island it reassembled much of the old AT&T dom- to New York City (Manhattan) to Staten inance of domestic telecommunication. Island. Its purpose, which it fulfilled success- Christopher H. Sterling fully, was to let him know when and where the British would land. On the tactical level, See also Army Signal Corps; Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); Cuban Missile Crisis a year later at Saratoga, American riflemen (1962); Microwave; Semi-Automatic Ground used turkey calls to communicate with one Environment (SAGE); SIGSALY; Telephone; another. The defeat at Germantown, Penn- Vacuum Tube; World War I; World War II sylvania, that same year, however, under- Sources scored the communication problems, chiefly AT&T. 1993. Events in Telcommunications History. the lack of standard signaling practices, New York: AT&T. encountered by the Revolutionary Army. Adams, Stephen B., and Orville R. Butler. 1999. Though several factors contributed to the loss, Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western the breakdown of communications and, sub- Electric, chap 5. New York: Cambridge sequently, cohesion, played a part. University Press. Bolling, George. 1983. AT&T: Aftermath of In the winter of 1777, when Washington’s Antitrust. Washington, DC: National Defense army trained at Valley Forge, one result was University Press. to develop standardized tactical communica- Brooks, John. 1976. Telephone: The First Hundred tions. These practices, eventually codified in Years, chaps. 7, 9. New York: Harper & Row. the drill manual of Friedrich von Steuben, a Lavine, A. Lincoln. 1921. Circuits of Victory. Garden City, NY: Country Life/Doubleday. German (Hessian) general working with Young, W. Russell. 1982. The Origin of the AT&T Washington, increased the effectiveness of National Defense Policy and Its Relations with the Continental Army’s operations. Drum- the Federal Government. Arlington, VA: SRI mers signaled troops to gather, advance, or International. retreat. The role and duties of the ensign, who carried the regimental flag, were defined. By his position and the manner in American Wars to 1860 which he carried the flag, he indicated a reg- iment’s location, its changes of direction, or From the American Revolution (1776–1781) to when it halted. just before the Civil War (1861–1865), Ameri- Communications technology advanced lit- can military forces campaigned against both tle between the American Revolution and foreign armies and Native Americans. Dur- the War of 1812, but the terrain over which

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communications were sent expanded, cre- carried to New Orleans and from there to ating difficulties. Communications to such Washington, arriving on 25 March. This was separate areas as Michigan, Canada, and a good example of the slowness and precari- New Orleans could be interrupted by hostile ous nature of communications, relying on Indians who occupied the center of the con- hearsay rather than communication directly tinent. Even without overt interference, there from the commander. was little infrastructure to support rapid and In 1860 the American Union Army became dependable transmission of messages from the first in the world to organize a separate the government in Washington DC to distant signals department. Experience using new outposts and battlefields. The British Royal technologies during the Mexican War re - Navy restricted the use of sea lanes and sulted in advances in organization and could interdict efforts at maritime communi- implementation to match technological cations. As a classic example of the slowness developments. of communications, an exchange of letters Robert Stacy between General Andrew Jackson in New Orleans and his superiors in Washington See also American Civil War (1861–1865); European Late Nineteenth-Century Wars; took six weeks. The Battle of New Orleans in Fire/Flame/Torch; Lights and Beacons; Morse late 1814 was itself a symptom of slow com- Code; Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872); Music munications: the participants had not yet Signals; Telegraph. learned that a treaty ending the war had been signed. Sources By the time the Mexican War began in 1846, Quimby, Robert S. 1997. The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command the number of steamboats in use for purposes Study. East Lansing: Michigan State Univer- of military communications had increased. sity Press. Couriers traveling by steamboat relayed Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the instructions and information. Railroads were Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. also used to some extent. Most important, Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History. telegraph lines now connected Army offices Von Steuben, Frederick William. 1985. Baron von in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Steuben’s Revolutionary War Drill Manual. New York. The Army used the telegraph New York: Dover (reprint). extensively, though letters were also sent to Winders, Richard Bruce. 1997. Mr. Polk’s Army: ensure vital communications were received. The American Military Experience in the Though faster and more secure than before, Mexican War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. communication problems continued. After Zachary Taylor’s army entered Mexico, it lacked communication links back to Wash- ington. To allow resupply from the Rio Ancient Signals Grande, Taylor sent a force to bring supplies and ensure that the lines were safe. Though Military and nautical writings prior to 500 generally successful, this force was involved CE refer to signals, though mostly by in some heavy fighting. A report reached obscure hints about one-way signals: Matamoras, Texas (as noted in the local news- “charge,” “attack,” “commence firing,” or paper on 3 March 1847), that Taylor’s force “commence shooting” (for longbows and/or had suffered a major defeat. This news was crossbows). Seldom were any more complex

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than “entry of cavalry” or “release warship provided warning of a message to come. At vanguard.” Signal towers by Hannibal, sight of the second torch, taps were opened Tiberius’s flashing sunbeams between Capri to allow water out of and the mainland, drums in both Persia each jug. When the correct battle situation and Africa, smoke in North America, and reached the top of the water, a third torch pigeons from Egyptian ships are also chron- signaled “close taps.” Each jug now showed icled. Save for some Roman and Chinese the same situation, thus transmitting the Great Wall signal station locations, precious message, though not very quickly. few physical artifacts survive. Many early Polybius, the Greek slave tutor/scholar in military historians, including Homer, Hero - Rome, who wrote of Aneas’s system in about dotus, and Thucydides, mention the use of 230 BCE, described the second ancient sys- fire signals. Plutarch, Livy, and Vegetius all tem, “which was more ‘precise,’ as invented cite various visual “telegraphs” in use by all by Cleoxones or Democritus but perfected Roman generals. Marcellinus reports flags, by myself,” in chapter 46 of his tenth history steamers, fires, lights, and sounds (trumpets book. The Greek or Roman alphabet was to or similar instruments). Yet few descriptions be laid out into five vertical and five horizon- of actual signals or signal systems exist. As tal sections. Two large tablets were set at British Royal Navy Commander Henry N. least 10 feet apart at each of two signal sta- Shore noted in 1915, “Considering the tions. The twenty-five letters on each tablet amount of attention bestowed to the art of were displayed identically. Messages were war by the ancients, it is strange that so little spelled by a series of three signals per letter: information regarding the methods of trans- One or two torches signified the table, one to mitting orders amongst the armies and fleets five torches indicated a letter’s vertical divi- can have filtered down to modern times.” sion, and one to five torches indicated a Assuming that modern motion pictures, letter’s horizontal division. The system was such as Braveheart, present a reasonable repli- indeed precise, but it was also very slow, cation of pregunfire battlefields, the absence cumbersome, and is not known to have ever of ordered signals seems logical. Most been used. ancient land battles were fought on large flat David L. Woods terrain amid constant noise. Even had tacti- cal signals existed, how could they be seen or See also Couriers; Fire/Flame/Torch; Flags; heard amid a battle’s confusion, dust, and Great Wall of China; Hadrian’s Wall; Horses noise? and Mules; Lights and Beacons; Maori Signaling; Military Roads; Music Signals; Only two ancient European signal systems Native American Signaling; Pigeons; Smoke have been described sufficiently to render them replicable. One was devised by Aneas Sources the Tactician about 341 BCE whereby two Burns, Russell W. 2004. “Communication large, identical cylindrical pots—one at each Among the Ancients” In Communications: An signal point—were filled with water and a International History of the Formative Years, 1–27. Stevanage, England: Institution of large cork floated on the surface of each pot. Electrical Engineers. In the middle of each cork was a stick carved Shore, Henry N. 1915. “Signalling Methods flat on one side. Various battle situations Among the Ancients.” United Service were carved on both sticks in identical fash- Magazine 52 (November): 166–174. ion. Two torches waved and acknowledged

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Warre, Edmund. 1876. “Ancient Naval Tactics.” to draw and print battle maps, and complete Royal United Service Institution Journal 28: cryptography capability for rapid coding 593–605. and decoding of communications. Woods, David L. 1965. “The First Three Thousand Years.” In A History of Tactical The Appalachian was commissioned in Communication Techniques, 1–11. Orlando, October 1943 and served in the Pacific The- FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno ater. She served as a command ship for the Press, 1974). invasion of Kwajalein in January–February Woolliscroft, D. J. 2001. Roman Military 1944 and subsequently supported amphibi- Signalling. Stroud, UK: Tempus. ous assaults at Guam in July 1944, Leyte in Yadin, Yigael. 1963. The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery. October 1944, and Lingayen Gulf in January London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1945. Following a West Coast overhaul, Appalachian returned to the combat zone just as the war against Japan was drawing to a Appalachian, USS close. In September–November 1945, she participated in the occupation of Japan. The USS Appalachian (AGC-1) was the first in Early in 1946 she was assigned to Joint a class of four 14,000-ton, 460-foot amphibi- Task Force 1, established for Operation ous force flagships built beginning in 1943. Crossroads, a series of atomic bomb tests to This was a new type of naval auxiliary, a spe- be carried out at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. cially equipped command and communica- From May to July 1946, Appalachian served as tions ship. The increasing complexity of a headquarters ship for media reporters cov- communications in modern amphibious war- ering the tests. During the second, or fare and the growing number of officers and “Baker,” detonation, the broadcast ship Spin- enlisted sailors necessary to staff amphibious dle Eye was moved to Hawaii to improve force headquarters necessitated these ships. radio transmission to the United States by A landing force commander with his staff acting as a relay between the Appalachian and their unique equipment simply took up and another AGC, the Mount McKinley, to more room than was available, even on a the U.S. mainland. Appalachian became the battleship or cruiser of the day. flagship of the Fifth Fleet and also served the Amphibious force flagships were de- Pacific Fleet in a similar role until 30 January signed to provide ample space for the large 1947, operating out of San Diego. She was command staffs needed to plan and direct decommissioned there in May 1947 and sold the many phases of a landing operation. for scrap after a dozen years in the reserve Their special communications facilities fleet. would help to ensure proper coordination of Spurred by the success of these flagships troop movement, naval gunfire, and sup- of World War II as well as the continuing porting air strikes. Commanders of land, sea, desire to remove major tactical force com- and air forces would have all relevant data manders and their staffs from excessively before them in a war-room setting in order to crowded combat ships, the postwar Navy coordinate tactics. This type of operational converted an incomplete heavy cruiser, setting would require hundreds of available Northampton (CA-125), to become a tactical radio circuits, as well as complete photo labs command ship. She was redesignated CLC-1 to process photographs, a map-making plant in 1947, completed in 1953, and became CC-1

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in 1961, when the role of National Emer- extended signaling distances from six to six- gency Command Post Afloat was added to teen miles. her mission. The “AGC” designation used In 1891 the U.S. Navy experimentally during the war became “LCC,” or amphibi- installed the Ardois system of electric lights in ous command ship, on 14 August 1968. some squadrons. Initially eight systems were These are the only ships to be designed for ordered at the then considerable cost of more such an amphibious command ship role than $1,000 each. The first order was followed (earlier amphibious command ships lacked a year later by one for six more Ardois sys- sufficient speed to keep up with a 20-knot tems. Each apparatus used a series of eight amphibious force). Subsequently, the Appala- double lamps (four red and four white) chian and the Northampton became fleet flag- placed vertically and read down (if mounted ships (LCC). USS Blue Ridge became the horizontally, they were read from the sender’s Seventh Fleet flagship in 1979, and USS right to the left). Each system came equipped Mount Whitney became the Second Fleet flag- with an Ardois-devised code, but the systems ship in 1981. could be used with other codes as well. The Danny Johnson Ardois system was intended to be mounted See also Flagship; U.S. Navy on a mast and operated from a keyboard on a convenient deck below. Sources Whatever code was utilized, Ardois red Mooney, James L., ed. 1991. Dictionary of lights indicated the “dots” and white lights the American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, “dashes” used in Morse code. For example, DC: Government Printing Office (Naval in English Morse code, the letter “A” became Historical Center). Radio News. 1946. “The Broadcasting Fleet, A red-white (dot-dash) and “B” was white- Survey of All Radio Ships and Artificial red-red-red (dash-dot-dot-dot). Used in this Structures.” Radio News (September). [Online way, the Ardois light system could be con- article; retrieved April 2007.] http://www sidered the first “allied” signal system with .offshore-radio.de/fleet/appalachian.htm. French lights carrying an American tele- graph code as modified by the British army and Royal Navy. Ardois Light In 1891–1892, the U.S. Navy compared the Ardois system with the Sellner system of Ardois lights were a widely used French sys- lights developed in Austria. While not as well tem of double electric red and white lamps, made as the Ardois system, the Sellner system usually arranged vertically on a naval ves- cost only $700 for each apparatus. The Ardois sel’s mast and used for coded night signaling. system was retained, however, until finally In 1875 the U.S. Navy began experiment- supplanted in 1897 by adding an improved ing with the use of electric lights for signal- keyboard, know as the “Telephotos.” ing. Two years later, Lieutenant W. N. Wood Some reports suggest the U.S. Army also perfected an electric system for visually made use of Ardois lights for night signaling. transmitting the English Morse telegraphic With the innovation of wireless, signal lights code, which had been adopted for naval use became of secondary importance, save in the previous year. This electric system was conditions of radio silence. installed in U.S. naval vessels in 1878 and Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Coston Signals; Night Signals; Radio the location’s former role, a thousand mem- Silence bers of the Women’s Army Corps). Two large, multistory operations buildings plus Source troop support facilities (barracks, post ex- Niblack, A. P. 1892. “Naval Signaling.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 18: 431–505. change, theater, recreational center) were ultimately built. Among other machine devices installed to help the code-breaking process were Arlington Hall more than seventy Western Electric–built “bombes” added in 1943 and built to British Located just west of Washington DC in designs (though slower because they used northern Virginia, Arlington Hall, a former standard telephone switching equipment). young women’s finishing school, became Researchers at Arlington Hall also developed the center of U.S. Army code-breaking oper- the “auto-scritcher,” “super-scritcher,” and ations during and after World War II. “dudbuster” electrical devices to assist in From 1927 to 1942, the leafy suburban site breaking German and Japanese army codes. was the home of Arlington Hall Junior Col- The super-scritcher, for example, used some lege. After the December 1941 attack on Pearl 3,500 vacuum tubes and may have been the Harbor, the Army’s Signal Intelligence Ser- first application of digital technology to the vice (SIS) (renamed the Signal Security Ser- code-breaking process. The dudbuster was vice by mid-1942, and Signal Security used, as its name suggested, to help recover Agency in 1943) found its duties in breaking partially garbled Enigma messages. All of Japan’s naval and military codes greatly these machines were needed, for while expanding. While seeking space for military Arlington Hall was handling 15,000 messages needs, several officers surveyed the school’s a month in 1942, the quantity soared to more grounds in April 1942. After the college’s than 700,000 per month two years later. With final graduation, the War Department pur- assistance from these machines, the human chased it for a court-imposed settlement of code breakers could usually break into a new $650,000 (which barely paid off the mortgage enemy code within a couple of months. on the existing buildings). In August 1942, Following World War II the army com- SIS’s growing operation and increased num- bined all of its signals intelligence and com- ber of personnel moved from the downtown munications missions and resources into one Washington DC Munitions Building on Con- unit, the Army Security Agency, on 15 Sep- stitution Avenue to the grounds of what was tember 1945. For the next thirty-two years, now called Arlington Hall Station. Arlington Hall Station served as the head- There SIS operations continued to expand quarters of the Army Security Agency and its for the duration of the war. Over the next worldwide command. It was also the home three years, construction was undertaken to of the top-secret “Venona” project to read meet the operational and support needs of Soviet codes, a project closed in 1980 and the expanding workforce, which by 1945 had first revealed fifteen years later. In 1977 the reached 5,700 civilians and 2,250 military agency became the U.S. Army Intelligence personnel (including, perhaps fittingly given and Security Command.

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Arlington Hall near Washington DC was headquarters for the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service cryptog- raphy operation during World War II. It became part of the National Security Agency in 1952. (National Security Agency)

Through the years Arlington Hall Station 1989. The facility now serves (in new build- served as a temporary home to a number of ings, though the old white-columned dormi- major tenants, including the Armed Forces tory hall of the women’s school survives) as Security Service, the then-new National the home of the State Department’s Security Agency, the Air Force Intelligence Foreign Service Training Center and the Command, the Army’s Signal Communica- National Guard Bureau. tions Security Command, and both the Christopher H. Sterling Defense Intelligence Agency and Defense See also Bletchley Park; Defense Communica- Communications Agency. tions Agency (DCA, 1960–1991); Driscoll, Following relocation of the last Army unit Agnes Meyer (1889–1971); Enigma; Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); Magic; to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Arlington Hall Sta- National Security Agency (NSA); Rowlett, tion was officially closed on 30 September Frank B. (1908–1998); Ultra

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Sources oriented magazines have shrunk during the Crawford, D. J., and P. E. Fox. 1992. “The past one or two decades as defense budgets Autoscritcher and Superscritcher: Aids to decline in the United States and abroad, Sig- Cryptanalysis of the German Enigma Cipher nal remains at least the same size, if not Machines.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 14 (3): 9–22. larger. Likewise, the AFCEA publishing Robertson, Laurie. 2004. “Arlington Hall organization continues to grow and includes Station: The U.S. Army’s World War II published conference proceedings and col- Cryptoanalytic Center.” IEEE Annals of the lections of articles from the monthly maga- History of Computing 26 (2): 86–89. zine. AFCEA publishes (and makes available online) several directories. Armed Forces Communications & Perhaps the most unusual AFCEA feature Electronics Association (AFCEA) is that its membership includes communica- tions and electronics experts from each of the American armed services as well as those Although AFCEA officially began in 1946, it from allied countries along with many peo- enjoys a heritage dating back to a handful of ple in the private sector. As of the early Union Signal Corps veterans who banded 2000s, AFCEA had some 31,000 members together after the American Civil War—prob- (20,000 individual and 11,000 corporate asso- ably more for sociability than professional ciates) arranged into more than thirty development. There are few not-for-profit regions around the world, and 1,300 corpo- professional associations more influential in rate members. Two-thirds of the individual military communications than AFCEA. members are with private industry. The total AFCEA began as the Army Signal Associ- number of AFCEA chapters in the United ation in 1946, was renamed the Armed States and abroad is 134. Forces Communication Association a year AFCEA, in partnership with its Edu- later, and added “Electronics” to its name in cational Foundation (formed in 1979) and 1954. In 1979, a European office was opened chapters, presents $1.4 million annually in in Brussels, Belgium. AFCEA offers numer- scholarships, grants, and awards to students ous programs with educational, profes- in the mathematical and physical sciences sional, and intellectual goals for civilian and attending the five service academies, Reserve military communications and electronics in Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs, most major nations. The European office of graduate schools, and other educational insti- AFCEA International was established in tutions. The awards program began in 1964. Brussels to serve European members. Cur- The AFCEA Professional Development Cen- rently about 30 European chapters and sub- ter complements the association’s educational chapters in 22 countries, with more than efforts by providing a wide-ranging program 4,000 members, communicate in 19 different of continuing education and technical train- languages. ing courses. AFCEA’s monthly publication, Signal, is AFCEA is headquartered in Fairfax, Vir- sixty years old as of this writing. Its Source ginia, outside Washington DC. Book issue, published each January, contains David L. Woods company profiles and contacts of AFCEA’s See also Institute of Electrical and Electronic corporate members. While most defense- Engineers (IEEE)

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Source each of his key inventions, Armstrong con- Armed Forces Communications & Electronics ducted countless laboratory experiments to Association (AFCEA). “About AFCEA.” work out the kinks in his circuits. He [Online information; retrieved August 2006.] http://www.afcea.org/about/. strongly favored physical evidence over mathematical theory. In 1920 Armstrong invented the super- Armstrong, Edwin Howard regenerative circuit that would make two- (1890–1954) way mobile radio systems possible. During the late 1920s and through the 1930s, Arm- Edwin Howard Armstrong was one of radio’s strong developed a system of FM radio, more prolific inventors, developing the regen- patented in 1933 and first offered to the erative, superheterodyne, and frequency Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for fur- modulation (FM) circuits. On active service ther development. When RCA focused in World War I, he made his several patents instead on television, Armstrong and a small freely available for American military use in band of followers experimented with and both world wars. perfected FM (thanks to his considerable Born in New York City on 18 December income from his earlier invention royalties 1890, Armstrong was attracted to radio as a and his dividends as the largest RCA indi- boy. He had built sophisticated receivers by vidual shareholder). Commercial FM broad- the time he graduated from high school in cast service began in the United States in 1909. He studied electricity with Michael 1941. Pupin at Columbia University, graduating in Armstrong began work for the Signal 1913 (the same institution awarded him an Corps again in 1939, developing an FM honorary doctorate of science degree in mobile radio. He undertook further projects 1929). In 1912 he developed the radio regen- at no salary in 1940–1941. With America’s erative, or “feedback,” circuit for signal entry into World War II, Armstrong waived amplification using three-element vacuum royalties on his inventions for any equip- tubes. This initiated two decades of patent ment manufactured for military use. He con- litigation with inventor Lee de Forest, which tinued to work on FM two-way radio ended with the Supreme Court finding for systems and radar research during and after de Forest in 1934. Despite the ruling, most the war. Armstrong’s research helped to engineers concluded then and since that the develop and perfect circuits and equipment invention was clearly Armstrong’s. to help in detection and identification; strate- During World War I, Armstrong served in gic and tactical ship, short, and air commu- the Army Signal Corps, beginning as a cap- nications systems; and weapons control and tain in mid-1917 and promoted to major guidance systems. early in 1919. He was stationed in France, In the early 1950s he perfected a system of working on intelligence and aircraft radio. FM multiplex communications. During his Just prior to the armistice of 1918, he career Armstrong published a score of tech- invented and later patented what became nical and many general audience papers on known as the superheterodyne circuit to all aspects of radio communication. But tune high frequency spectrum bands. For despite a lifetime of awards and honors,

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Lewis, Tom. 1991. Empire of the Air: The Men Who Invented Radio. New York: Harper- Collins. Morrisey, John W., ed. 1990. The Legacies of Edwin Howard Armstrong. New York: Radio Club of America. Ragazzini, John R. 1954. “Creativity in Radio: Contributions of Major Edwin H. Armstrong.” Journal of Engineering Education 45 (October): 112–119.

Army Airways Communications System, Airways and Air Communications Service (AACS, 1938–1961)

The U.S. Army transmitted the first radio message from an aircraft in 1910, and by the decade’s end the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps was actively experiment- The innovations in electrical engineering that Edwin ing with air-to-ground and ground-to-air Howard Armstrong created were so essential that communications. In 1923 the Air Service several of his inventions are still used in radar and established its first radio stations for air-to- radio equipment. His most important achievement ground and point-to-point communications was the invention of wide-band frequency modulation and to disseminate weather data. But by (FM) radio. (Library of Congress) 1938 only thirty-three stations had been established, and flying was still usually frustrated by the costs of an extended patent undertaken only in good weather and dur- battle (chiefly with RCA) over rights to FM ing daylight hours. When an aircraft left the circuits, Armstrong took his own life in New ground, its whereabouts often remained in York City on 31 January 1954. doubt until it landed. Christopher H. Sterling To overcome these restrictions on its com- plex operations, the War Department estab- See also Army Signal Corps; de Forest, Lee (1873–1961); Modulation; Vacuum Tube; lished the Army Airways Communications World War I System (AACS) on 15 November 1938 to operate all fixed Air Corps radio facilities Sources that aided air traffic between Army flying Armstrong, Edwin H. 1940. “Evolution of fields in the continental United States. Major Frequency Modulation.” Electrical Engineer- Wallace G. Smith became the Air Corps com- ing (December): 485–493. Lessing, Lawrence. 1956. Edwin Howard munications control officer. To operate the Armstrong: Man of High Fidelity. Philadelphia: system, Smith divided the United States into J. P. Lippincott. three regions, each with a squadron. Autho-

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rized staffing for the entire system consisted over which AACS had been broadcasting of three officers and 300 enlisted men. uncoded weather information. Within two As the United States moved toward war, hours, Tokyo replied. This represented the AACS expanded its operations. In May 1941 first direct communications between the it established its first foreign station at Goose Allies and Japan. On 28 August 1945, Bay, Labrador, to support ferry routes to Colonel Gordon Blake and his AACS contin- Britain and made possible the Bolero Project, gent flew to Atsugi Airfield as part of a task the mass movement of aircraft to Britain force to provide advance support for Amer- between July and September 1942. Starting a ican troops. tradition of being in the thick of every oper- When World War II ended, AACS was a ation, AACS personnel were in the Hickam major military command with a worldwide Airfield control towers on Oahu when Japan mission. Eight wings, 21 groups, 55 squad- attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. rons, and more than 700 detachments com- AACS men were also involved in the battle prised its ranks. Its 49,000 military men and at Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in early 1942, and women operated 819 stations throughout later used its sites in Alaska to establish a the world. Thirty-eight allied nations, ferry route to the Soviet Union. As the U.S. including the Soviet Union, used AACS facil- war effort expanded around the globe, ities. AACS operated in all theaters and in all AACS went with it, establishing a world- campaigns of the war. Communications wide network of stations providing “high- made a quantum leap as military planners ways in the sky.” The success of the AACS reacted to conditions and needs imposed by airways communication network revolution- war. AACS had steadily introduced new ized the entire science of logistics. Among its equipment and new techniques such as achievements, it made possible the resupply radio teletype, facsimile, automatic high of the British at El Alamein and served the speed transmissions, and ground-controlled China-Burma-India supply line. approach radar. AACS mobile units reached Normandy, The war’s end and demobilization brought France, on 12 June 1944, just six days after D- rapid changes to AACS. In March 1946 it lost Day, and raced with Patton’s army for the its status as an independent command, Rhine. AACS men were consistently the first became a subordinate field unit of Air Trans- Army/Air Force personnel to appear in port Command, and was redesignated Air- overrun territory, winning a proud reputa- ways and Air Communications Service tion of being first in and last out. Though (AACS), an association that lasted until June technically noncombatants, AACS troops 1961. In December 1946, AACS had only 8,635 often had to take up arms to defend them- military personnel, which seriously affected selves because control towers were prime its ability to meet its occupation duties and targets during an enemy attack. maintain its worldwide air networks. The AACS played a key role in the surrender Berlin Airlift crisis in 1948 initially swamped of the Japanese. After General Douglas AACS air traffic operators in Berlin, but quick MacArthur tried unsuccessfully to contact augmentation and improvisation allowed the Japanese with surrender terms, AACS AACS to provide the airways navigation, air sent MacArthur’s instructions to the Japan- traffic control, and communications that ese on 15 August 1945 using the frequency made the airlift possible. No aircraft were

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lost while under AACS ground-controlled basic services of air traffic control and long- approach radar control. haul communications and added on-base The Korean War soon followed the Berlin communications systems, cable systems Airlift, and as in World War II, AACS person- plants, and maintenance networks previ- nel were among the first to deploy. AACS ously assigned to other major commands. detachments were operating at Pusan, Thomas S. Snyder Taegu, and Pohang, South Korea, a week See also Airplanes; Army Signal Corps; Berlin after President Truman authorized U.S. mil- Airlift; Computer; Facsimile/Fax; Modula- itary involvement in July 1950. By the end of tion; Satellite Communications; Single the war, traffic volume at several South Sideband; Spectrum Frequencies; Korean airfields often exceeded traffic at Teleprinter/Teletype Tempelhof Airport during the height of the Berlin Airlift. Sources Communications technology expanded Miller, Linda G., and Cora J. Holt. 1988. Air Force Communications Command Chronology, during the 1950s to keep pace with changes 1938–1988. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force in aviation technology and the world politi- Communications Command Office of cal situation. By 1960, AACS air-to-ground History. communications used the electronic spec- Shores, Louis. 1947. Highways in the Sky: The Story trum from low to ultra-high frequencies. of the AACS. New York: Barnes & Noble. Snyder, Thomas S., ed. 1981. Air Force Communi- Modulation techniques included amplitude cations Command: An Illustrated History. Scott modulation (AM), frequency modulation Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Communica- (FM), single sideband, data link, and digi- tions Command Office of History. tized command. Navigation aids used oper- ational radio, radar, stellar, and inertial guidance systems. AACS also played an important role in the fielding of ballistic mis- Army Battle Command System sile early warning systems and pioneered (ABCS) improvements in point-to-point, computer, and satellite communications. The AACS An automated command-and-control (C2) mission also included flight check and engi- system, the U.S. Army Battle Command Sys- neering and installation. tem (ABCS) employs a mix of fixed and The importance of communications for mobile networks and is designed to be inter- the effective use of airpower in a stressed operable with theater, joint, and combined world prompted the establishment of AACS command systems. Put another way, ABCS as a major air command on 1 July 1961, and is the new overarching “system of systems” its simultaneous redesignation as the Air intended to coordinate and standardize Force Communications Service. The decision nearly a dozen existing Army networks. to organize Air Force communications on a In 1988 an effort was initiated to integrate global scale under a single manager was the those systems into a family (or system) of result of AACS’s twenty-three years of expe- systems operating out of command centers rience in developing communications specif- called Army Tactical Command and Control ically responsive to the needs of airpower. Systems. The U.S. Army began a set of for- The new command continued to provide mal experiments in harnessing military

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information in 1994 with its advanced See also Future Combat Systems; Iraq War warfighter experiments using computer and (2003–Present); Single Channel Ground and information technology networks to increase Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS); “System of Systems”; Warfighter Information the speed and agility of combat power. ABCS Network–Tactical (WIN-T); World Wide was first identified as such in 1995. While Military Command and Control System constant updating and enhancement of the (WWMCCS) system was initially planned, with the war on terrorism, the Army chief of staff directed Sources that the effort should be refocused to deliver Chisholm, Patrick. 2004. “‘Good Enough’ Battle Command,” [Online article; retrieved those capabilities most desired by comman- January 2007.] Military Information Technology ders for use in current operations. 8 (August 17): 6. http://www .military ABCS was first deployed during opera- -information-technology.com/article.cfm tions in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, ?DocID=576. though it was often underutilized due to Federation of American Scientists. 1999. “Army Battle Command System.” [Online article; limited training. Sometimes referred to as a retrieved January 2007.] http://www.fas “good enough” system, the idea behind .org/man/dod-101/sys/land/abcs.htm. ABCS is not necessarily to include all possi- Rider, Tim. n.d. “Digital Dreams: A Concise ble bells and whistles at the top command History of Army Battle Command Systems.” level, but rather to standardize software, [Online article; retrieved January 2007.] integrating only those capabilities essential http://www.monmouth.army.mil/ monmessg/newmonmsg/jun162006/ to ensure joint interoperability, and distrib- m24tim.htm. ute this standardized capability to all Army combat units. The “good enough” approach saves development time and money and ensures all levels of the service will see the Army Signal Corps same information at the same time. ABCS provides more data communications, for The U.S. Army’s communications branch while voice communications will always be was established by Congress in June 1860 as important on a battlefield, a visual image the first American military organization ded- can be far more useful. icated solely to communications. The ABCS system is tested at the Army’s The Army Signal Corps’ creation coin- Central Technical Support Facility at Fort cided with technological advances that Hood, Texas (the largest Army post in the extended the battlefield and made it more United States), before it is fielded. Under deadly. The situation called for new methods the consolidated structure of ABCS, a user of signaling beyond voice commands and is able to log on to the network from a mounted messengers. Major Albert J. Myer “ruggedized” Army laptop computer. ABCS became the Army’s first chief signal officer. will enhance training, improve field opera- He had earlier devised the wig-wag system tion, and reduce communications support of signaling using flags by day and torches at requirements while improving the function- night to rapidly send messages over long ality and effectiveness of the Army’s com- distances. With the outbreak of the American mand system. Civil War early in 1861, Myer organized a Christopher H. Sterling separate wartime corps of soldiers trained in

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signaling and assigned them to the various incorporated it into its wire network. The field armies. He ordered construction of a field telegraph train received some improve- “field train” to enable telegraph equipment ments, and the corps adopted a standard to be carried onto the battlefield. heliograph for use in the late nineteenth- The Signal Corps’ use of electrical tele- century Indian campaigns in the southwest- graphy, however, put it in competition with ern United States. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton’s own Electrical communications came to the telegraph corps, known as the United States forefront during the 1898 war with Spain, Military Telegraph. Consequently, in 1863 when the Signal Corps found itself facing Stanton dismissed Myer as chief and removed unprecedented challenges of time and space. electrical telegraphy from the Signal Corps’ Moreover, the branch was too small (then auspices. Nevertheless, signal soldiers con- just eight officers and fifty enlisted men) to tinued to provide visual communications for cover necessary signaling duties. Congress the duration of the Civil War. Although the responded by authorizing a volunteer Signal Signal Corps did not contribute decisively to Corps for the duration of the conflict. Signal the outcome of the conflict, it did play an soldiers established land and undersea com- important role in such battles as Fredericks- munications systems in Cuba, Puerto Rico, burg (1862) and Gettysburg (1863) and in the and the Philippines and connected those dis- fighting around Atlanta (1864). tant shores with the United States. The corps In the postwar period, Myer regained his succeeded in transmitting messages between position as chief signal officer and worked Cuba and Washington DC in as little as to establish the branch on a permanent twenty minutes. This conflict also marked basis. Some respected army leaders, among the corps’ first significant practice of combat them General William T. Sherman, ques- photography, a function with which it would tioned the necessity for such a branch. Myer become closely associated. accomplished his goal by assuming respon- Toward the end of the nineteenth century, sibility for the nation’s weather service. the Army Signal Corps explored the use of Using existing telegraph lines and building aerial communications, employing captive others in remote locations not served by balloons as portable observation platforms. commercial systems, the Signal Corps orga- The anchor rope carried a telephone line to nized a nationwide weather reporting net- transmit the information obtained aloft. The work. It issued daily forecasts and began balloon’s most notable use occurred during publishing Monthly Weather Review, which the battle of Santiago, Cuba, in 1898 when continues in print today. The Army ran the observers located a previously unknown U.S. Weather Bureau until 1891 when Con- trail that hastened the deployment of troops gress transferred it to the Department of to San Juan Hill. In 1909 the Signal Corps Agriculture. purchased the Army’s first airplane from the While the signaling aspect of the corps’ Wright brothers, the origins of today’s U.S. mission received less emphasis during this Air Force. The corps’ involvement with air- period, it did not disappear altogether. The planes stemmed from the perception that corps began using the telephone soon after they represented a more sophisticated form its commercial introduction in 1877 and of aerial observation.

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The twentieth century saw the advent of for radio equipment. In Europe, the corps electronic communications. The Signal Corps installed a strategic wire network that ulti- experimented with wireless technology as mately extended some 38,000 miles. Because early as 1899. In 1900 the corps began con- radios were still large and cumbersome, field structing the Washington-Alaska Military telephony carried the backbone of wartime Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), tactical communications. Although the which included a wireless link across Norton branch lost its aviation section in the war’s Sound, a distance of 107 miles. The corps waning months, it retained responsibility for established a laboratory in the basement of aerial radio. The Signal Corps’ contribution the Signal Corps office in Washington, where to victory can be measured in its casualty signal personnel built and tested new equip- rate, second only to the Infantry’s. Its role on ment. The corps also set up a radio lab in the the battlefield was now beyond doubt. newly established Bureau of Standards Despite meager budgets and greatly where the U.S. Navy carried out similar reduced staffing, the corps devoted its efforts experimentation. As the United States moved during the interwar years to developing toward entering the war in Europe in 1917, such critical items as radar and FM radio. In military communications stood at a cross- addition, the teletypewriter proved faster roads between the past and the future, using and more versatile than older Morse code– pigeons as well as electricity to carry the based systems. On the tactical level, the Army’s messages. walkie-talkie provided soldiers with por- World War I proved to be a significant table battlefield communications. milestone in the Army Signal Corps’ history. The 1941 surprise attack at Pearl Harbor From fewer than 2,000 officers and men, the by the Japanese, however, highlighted the branch mushroomed by war’s end to limitations of the Army’s communications. approximately 55,000 members. Moreover, Although the Signal Corps had installed the corps made substantial investments in radar sets on Oahu, they were not yet fully research and development. Outgrowing its operational in December 1941. Once again existing space in Washington, the corps the corps underwent an enormous expan- opened training and laboratory facilities at sion to meet the demands of a global conflict. Camp Alfred Vail, New Jersey (later re - One of its most daunting tasks was to estab- named Fort Monmouth, it remained the lish a worldwide military communications site of the Army Signal Corps school until system. Known as the Army Command and 1974). Consulting with experts in the private Administrative Network (ACAN), it con- sector, such as John J. Carty of AT&T, and nected Washington with all major field com- recruiting others from the communications mands at home and overseas. The Army industry, the branch gathered the resources Signal Corps joined forces once again with it needed. The corps also called upon civilian the commercial communications industry, scientists, such as Edwin Howard Arm- and the fruits of this effort—in particular, strong, who developed the superheterodyne improvements in radar technology—were circuit while serving in the Army Signal critical to winning the war. On the battle- Corps in France. Despite these efforts, the field, the walkie-talkie and the handie-talkie United States depended largely on its allies put radios in soldiers’ hands. Radio relay—

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Signal Corps soldiers use a radar plotting board at an aircraft warning information center on New Caledonia in 1943. Radio-based radar was a crucial technology in all theaters of World War II and such centers proved invalu- able in directing battles on land, sea, and in the air. (Library of Congress) the marriage of wire and radio—allowed prior to Pearl Harbor, but it was the Poles communications to keep up with fast- and British who succeeded in cracking the moving operations. German Enigma machine. But the growing reliance on electronic After 1945, peace proved short lived, and communications came with a price: in- the Cold War era began. The Signal Corps creased susceptibility to enemy jamming and soon found itself fighting in Korea using interception. Consequently signal security its World War II–vintage equipment. That and intelligence assumed critical impor- country’s climatic extremes, mountainous tance. The Signal Intelligence Service had terrain, and lack of good roads greatly com- been created in 1929 to control all Army plicated communications. The corps de - cryptology. William Friedman, an Army Sig- pended heavily on very high frequency nal Corps cryptologist, had supervised the (VHF) radios to span the long distances, team that broke the Japanese PURPLE code

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while on the ground signal soldiers often and tropospheric scatter. While communica- used water buffalo to string wire. tions satellites proved disappointing in their Meanwhile, communications entered the combat zone debut, they held great promise space age. The Signal Corps had successfully for future strategic applications. bounced radar signals off the moon in 1946. In In 1974 the signal school moved from Fort response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sput- Monmouth to Fort Gordon, Georgia. Fort nik in 1957, the corps participated in Amer- Monmouth retained its research and devel- ica’s nascent space program. With the creation opment role as home of the Communications of the National Aeronautics and Space and Electronics Command. The branch Administration in 1958, military dominance reached another milestone with the opening of the space program ended, but not its par- of many of its occupational specialties to ticipation in it. Working with the Air Force, women. By 1976 the corps included 7,000 the Signal Corps launched the world’s first enlisted women distributed among all but communications satellite in December 1958. six of its sixty-one communications special- Two years later it cooperated with the ties. In 2002 Brigadier General Janet E. A. Weather Bureau and other agencies to de - Hicks became the first female commander of velop the first weather satellite. the Signal Center and School at Fort Gordon. In its laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Since 1986 the commandant has also carried Jersey, the Signal Corps continued the trend the title of chief of signal. toward miniaturization that had begun with The closing decades of the twentieth cen- the walkie-talkie. The development of the tury saw the Army engaged in a number of transistor and the integrated circuit launched small-scale conflicts. As joint operations the digital revolution. In 1954 the Army became more commonplace, communications established an electronic proving ground at interoperability among the services took on Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to conduct experi- increasing importance. The lack of interoper- mentation free from the interference associ- ability posed particular problems during an ated with Monmouth’s increasingly urban invasion of Grenada in 1983. By the time the location. The Army made the arrival of this United States and an allied coalition battled new era official by replacing the office of Iraq in the Gulf War in 1990–1991, many the chief signal officer with the chief of of these difficulties had been resolved. communications–electronics in 1964. Moreover, computers and satellites greatly The prolonged Vietnam conflict (1959– enhanced the ability of commanders to coor- 1975) witnessed the culmination of a century dinate their forces. Army modernization of progress in military signaling. For the first since 1991 has concentrated on the digitiza- time, high-quality commercial communica- tion of command and control. tions became available to the soldier in the As the Signal Corps approaches its sesqui- field. On the tactical level, new transistorized centennial in 2010, its basic mission remains combat radios enabled infantry, armored the same: to get the message through in divisions, and artillery troops to communi- peace and war. It is one of the Army’s largest cate directly with each other. For strategic branches and its military value is undeni- purposes, the Signal Corps employed such able. Wherever they are being worn around sophisticated techniques as microwave relay the world, the crossed flags and torches of

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the Army Signal Corps’ insignia are visible more usual ordnance function. Not only can reminders of the branch’s rich heritage as it gunshots be used for crude aural signaling carries military communications into the but also artillery shells can be loaded with twenty-first century. messages or propaganda leaflets, much like Rebecca Robbins Raines bombs. Both world wars saw numerous instances of the latter, but the earliest recorded See also Airplanes; Alaska Communications System; American Civil War (1861–1865); use dates to the late nineteenth century. Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890–1954); Gunfire can be used as a simple means of Fort Gordon, Georgia; Fort Huachuca, communications in wartime conditions, with Arizona; Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; the number of shots, for example, indicating Greely, Adolphus W. (1844–1935); Gulf War a certain prearranged message. Gunfire, or (1990–1991); Heliograph and Mirrors; Korean even a recording of gunfire, can readily be War (1950–1953); Myer, Albert James (1828– 1880); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Squier, used to attract (or distract) attention of an George Owen (1865–1934); Telegraph; U.S. enemy force. It can be useful in helping to Military Telegraph Service (USMTS); locate isolated forces. Gunfire can be an Vietnam War (1959–1975); World War I; effective means of signaling day or night World War II and under any weather conditions. Under carefully controlled circumstances, artillery Sources Bergen, John D. 1986. Military Communications: can fire shells containing messages to allied A Test for Technology. United States Army in forces, albeit with the danger that such “air- Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: Govern- borne” communication may be intercepted. ment Printing Office. Artillery has been more widely used for Brown, J. Willard. 1896. The Signal Corps, U.S.A. communicating propaganda than messages. in the War of the Rebellion. Boston: U.S. Army Veteran Signal Corps Association (reprinted Sometimes called “carrier shells,” an artillery by Arno Press, 1974). shell can be simply a hollow carrier equipped Glassford, William A. 1896. “The Signal Corps.” with a fuse that ejects the contents at a calcu- In The Army of the United States, edited by lated time. The contents are most often pro- Theophilus F. Rodenbough and William L. paganda leaflets but can be anything that Haskin. New York: Maynard, Merrill, and meets the weight limit and is able to with- Co. Marshall, Max L., ed. 1965. The Story of the U.S. stand the shock of firing. Famously, on Army Signal Corps. New York: Franklin Christmas Day 1899 during the Boer War Watts. siege of Ladysmith, the Boers fired into sur- Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the rounded British forces a carrier shell without Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. a fuse that contained a Christmas pudding, Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Govern- ment Printing Office. two Union Jack flags, and the message, Scheips, Paul J., ed. 1980. Military Signal Com - “Compliments of the season.” munications. 2 vols. New York: Arno Press. During World War I, Italy and Britain used “rocket sticks” as message carriers. A map or message was contained in a metal tube shot Artillery/Gunfire from a mortar and attached to a smoke bomb to make finding the message easier. Germans Gunfire and artillery have often served as made use of four types of pistol signal car- means of communicating in addition to their tridges with different-colored charges.

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In World War II, British forces used smoke Propaganda Leaflets of the Second World War. shells for propaganda, removing the smoke- “Falling from the Sky.” [Online article; generating devices and inserting sometimes retrieved February 2006.] http://members .home.nl/ww2propaganda/spread5.htm. hundreds of propaganda leaflets, which Woods, David L. 1965. “Pyrotechnic Signals.” would then be shot into German or Italian In A History of Tactical Communication lines. This was done in both North Africa Techniqus, chap. 6. Orlando, FL: Martin- and, after D-Day, in western Europe. The Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, Americans used 105- and 155-mm howitzer 1974). shells in a similar way. The Germans designed one 105-mm artillery shell specifically for Association of Old Crows (AOC) spreading leaflets. It was called “Weiss-Rot Geschoss” after the red color coding applied The Association of Old Crows (AOC), nearly to it. In field operations, grenades could serve 15,000 strong in the early 2000s, is a tax- a similar purpose, though obviously carrying exempt organization of those who work or fewer and smaller leaflets. Army cartoonist once worked in electronic countermeasures Bill Mauldin made light of the process with (ECM) for one of the American military ser- one of his famous “Willy and Joe” drawings vices or supporting companies. suggesting the Germans had no time to read What would become AOC grew out of the the messages being shot over their lines. work of one man. In early 1942, Mel Jackson Artillery or grenades used for leaflet dis- was the first officer assigned to ECM duties in tribution used a time fuse that fired a small the U.S. Army Air Force. He decided to form explosive charge to expel the leaflets in air an association of former ECM personnel, and over enemy trenches. The firing of the gun around 1953, while marketing ECM equip- often compacted the leaflets in the grenade ment, Jackson had membership certificates in such a way that caused a characteristic and identifying coins made, passing them out folding pattern on the leaflets. Indeed, the to the military personnel he was dealing with, expelling charge often burned parts of the as a sort of honorarium from his company. He leaflets. Artillery shells were also used for adopted a logo that appeared on coffee mugs sending propaganda leaflets in later wars, and other memorabilia. Some carried the including Vietnam. motto Non Videbunt, which translates to Christopher H. Sterling “They Shall Not See.” The next step was an informal gathering of men who had served in See also Propaganda and Psychological Warfare the Strategic Air Command (SAC) as ECM Sources officers. By September 1964, the reunion idea Alexander, David J. “The Propaganda Shell.” had taken hold, and 360 people gathered for [Online article; retrieved February 2006.] a banquet at the Washington DC Shoreham http://www.psywar.org/psywar/ Hotel. They included people from all three reproductions/pshell.pdf. military services, as well as many from indus- Erdmann, James M. 1969. Leaflet Operations in try and universities engaged in ECM research. the Second World War. Denver, CO: James Erdmann. Of that group of attendees, many joined to Margolin, Leo J. 1946. Paper Bullets: A Brief Story form the new AOC. of Psychological Warfare in World War II. New The group’s name always attracts questions. York: Froben Press. During World War II Allied ECM

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officers, assigned to disrupt enemy communi- EW since the end of the Cold War; reduced cations and radar (the first were in May 1942), threat research by the Department of Defense; were given the code name “Raven.” After the changes in service missions; and downsizing, war, a group of Raven operators were directed consolidations, and mergers within the to establish a SAC flying course in ECM oper- defense industry. Despite the decline, AOC ations at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. provides twelve to fifteen professional de - According to those present, the students velopment courses each year, attended by changed the name “Raven” to “Crows” and ten to twenty-five students and focused on those engaged in the profession became advanced technology topics related to EW known as Old Crows. The unofficial action and information operations. AOC annually soon became widely accepted. cosponsors (with defense agencies or related By 1966 AOC had grown to 2,300 mem- organizations) about a dozen two-day tech- bers and was publishing a regular magazine, nology conferences attended by from 75 to Crow Caws, which later became the quarterly 450 conferees. AOC is also continually active and more formal Electronic Warfare in 1968. in several ECM informational campaigns in AOC annual conventions began to attract both government and industry. industry exhibitions. By 1968, 8,000 members Christopher H. Sterling organized into fifty local chapters. An educa- See also Armed Forces Communications & tional foundation was formed in 1974 and Electronics Association (AFCEA); Electronic has spearheaded substantial scholarship Countermeasures/Electronic Warfare funding. A national full-time office was set (ECM/EW) up in Washington in 1970—by the late 1980s, Sources AOC operated out of its own building in Association of Old Crows. Home page. [Online Alexandria, Virginia. AOC funded a long- information; retrieved April 2007.] www term project by Alfred Price to document .crows.org. and publish the history of United States elec- Bartlow, Gene. “A Brief History of the Associa- tronic warfare (EW), and three volumes tion of Old Crows (AOC).” [Online article; retrieved September 2005.] https://www appeared in 1984, 1989, and 2000. A three- .myaoc.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx part video series, The Invisible War, aired on ?webcode=history. cable television in 1996 and was made avail- Price, Alfred. 1984–2000. The History of U.S. able on video. Electronic Warfare. 3 vols. Alexandria, VA: By the early 2000s, AOC had become a pro- Association of Old Crows. fessional association with an annual budget of approximately $2.4 million, ten staff mem- bers, and more than 14,500 members orga- Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945) nized into sixty-five chapters from nineteen countries (comprising 29 percent government Winston Churchill dubbed the Battle of the and active duty military and 49 percent Atlantic the most important of World War II. defense electronics industry personnel). It was certainly the longest, lasting nearly Membership peaked at 25,000 in 1988 but seventy months. With substantial losses of has declined almost 40 percent in the two ships and men on both sides, the Atlantic decades since. This is the result of several fac- struggle became a long conflict—really a tors, including reduced defense spending on series of individual actions—of attrition and

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steadily improving technologies. Though of sufficient escort vessels and long-range essentially won by 1943 thanks largely to patrol aircraft. more effective Allied use of code breaking, With ASDIC failing to thwart the German radar, and aircraft, actual fighting ranged U-boats, the British began to devote intensive over the whole six years of World War II. effort to solve the Enigma codes. In the spring While the Allies sought to protect vital mil- of 1941, Enigma code machinery and code- itary trade routes, the aim of the German sub- books were captured from several German marine effort (with the occasional aid of vessels, giving British code breakers a huge surface raiders and long-range bombers) leap forward. When the Germans changed under Admiral Karl Dönitz was to sink suffi- their codes in February 1942, however, condi- cient shipping so as to force Britain out of the tions in the Atlantic deteriorated for the war. As the war began, Dönitz had fifty-seven British once again and losses rose as Britain U-boats and only twenty-seven fit for long- could not read German communications for range Atlantic service. Though he claimed to the rest of the year. U-boats enjoyed another need 300 to do the job, he achieved initial happy time, made worse for the Allies when successes, including the 3 September 1939 the U.S. Navy initially resisted convoying sinking of the British passenger liner Athenia. ships. Further, for the first six months of 1942, The U-boat menace in the Atlantic ex- American seaboard cities did not adopt panded after the German occupation of Nor- evening blackouts, thus silhouetting vessels way and France in early 1940, which gave against the shore and making them easy tar- the submarines new coastal bases closer to gets. German code breakers were also able to major shipping lanes. U-boats could now read some Allied convoy codes. Resulting make speedy entry into the Atlantic and inter- shipping losses in the western Atlantic rose rupt Allied convoy lanes. This inaugurated to record levels and the U-boat fleet peaked the so-called happy time when Dönitz uti- at over 200. lized Enigma-coded radio communications The eventual demise of the German sub- to direct U-boat wolf packs to more effectively marine threat began after March 1943. attack the convoys. As the number of Atlantic Britain once again penetrated the improved U-boats increased in 1941, the monthly ton- German codes and as a result could reroute nage of lost Allied ships soared—to a total of convoys around known submarine wolf more than two million tons in the Atlantic packs. Also contributing were the more effec- over the course of the war. Some early con- tive application of radar and ASDIC, the voys lost two-thirds of their ships. improvement of antisubmarine vessels (and The British hoped to deal with the U-boat more of them), more reliable depth charges, problem through the use of convoy escorts and the growing use of patrolling aircraft equipped with depth charges directed that could read all areas of the Atlantic. In toward targeted U-boats by the Allied Sub- addition, Allied bombing of U-boat construc- marine Detection Investigating Committee tion sites and bases became more effective. In (ASDIC) device or sonar. But ASDIC was the end the Allies’ ability to replace losses not a reliable means of identifying enemy faster than Germany could destroy ships vessels on or under the sea. The convoy sys- tipped the scales. tem, initiated slowly in the first months of Germany’s use of acoustic torpedoes, better the war, was hampered until 1943 by a lack radar detection, and antiaircraft weaponry

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made little overall difference. Nor did, in defense installations along the Atlantic coast the final year of the war, snorkel breathing of France, the Low Countries, and Norway. apparatus allowing submarines to stay sub- Much of the effort was concentrated on the merged for extended periods of time. Despite long Norwegian coastline and in the Channel their responsibility for 70 percent of Allied Islands off Brittany. Consisting of thousands ship losses, Germany’s own submarine losses of artillery bunkers and some extensive multi- rose sharply in 1943–1944, and by the end of bunker fortified sites, the majority of which the war more than 500 U-boats had been sunk were built to a series of standardized designs, during the Atlantic engagement. the huge venture was designed to make an Marc L. Schwartz and Christopher H. Sterling Allied invasion of German-occupied Europe See also Aldis Lamp; Bletchley Park; Enigma; excessively costly. Germany: Naval Intelligence (B-Dienst); The effectiveness of the line as a mode of Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC; Signals defense depended, in considerable part, on Intelligence (SIGINT); Submarine Communi- secure communications. As with the earlier cations; Ultra French Maginot Line, radio was but one means of communication along the Atlantic Sources Blair, Clay. 1996, 1998. Hitler’s U-Boat War. 2 Wall fortifications and from them to various vols. New York: Random House. military headquarters behind the coast. Kahn, David. 1991. Seizing the Enigma: The Race Communication within strong points of the to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943. wall line was nearly always by voice tube Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. within individual bunkers, or by telephone Sarty, Roger. 1997. “The Limits of Ultra: The (connected with buried cables) between Schnorkel U-Boat Offensive Against North America, November 1944–January 1945.” bunkers of larger strong points. The system Intelligence and National Security 12 (2): used was similar to German field telephones, 44–68. with hand-cranked end-user equipment and Showell, Jak P. Mallmann. 2000. Enigma U-Boats: switchboards powered from batteries. Breaking the Code. Annapolis, MD: Naval Radio was used only in the most important Institute Press. Syrett, David. 1994. The Defeat of the German buildings of larger complexes and rarely U-Boats: The Battle of the Atlantic. Columbia: within individual bunkers. The problem was University of South Carolina Press. that radio needed external antennas as the Williams, Andrew. 2003. The Battle of the steel-reinforced concrete of bunker construc- Atlantic. New York, Basic Books. tion otherwise blocked radio signals. Further, the housings for such antennas required openings in bunker walls or ceilings that Atlantic Wall could be exploited by an enemy force, espe- cially one using gas. Those radio antennas From 1942 to 1944, after it became clear that that were required usually were telescopic, Germany would not invade Britain, the Ger- being raised only when actually in use. man military construction entity, the Organi- A few specialized communication bunkers zation Todt, employed an army of conscript (nachrichtenstände), about 2 percent of all labor to construct a massive (though never structures, were constructed at key sites, fully completed) string of 15,000 coastal usually combining both radio and telephone

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tions remained fully manned to the end of the war nearly a year later. Numerous muse- ums now operate within former Atlantic Wall installations, some of them featuring the wall’s communication links. Christopher H. Sterling

See also Coast Defense; Maginot Line; Radio; Telephone; World War II

Source Chazette, Alain, et al. 1995. “La Transmission.” In Atlantikwall: Le Mur de L’Atlantique en France 1940–1944, 38–39, 58–70. Paris: Editions Heimdal.

Australia: Royal Australian Corps of Signals

Military signaling has been vital to the devel- Radio and telephone facilities linked gun batteries like opment and protection of the expansive Aus- this one on the Atlantic Wall fortifications, built by tralian continent for at least 150 years. the Germans along the European coast from 1941 to Australia played a part in the British Empire 1944 in an attempt to ward off Allied invasion. and Commonwealth and its signal forces (LAPI/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) served widely in both world wars and in many peacekeeping efforts since. The provinces of Victoria and New South links. Air and naval bases also had their own Wales both had their own torpedo and sig- communications bunkers, some of them naling corps from 1869 until 1882, when the extensive, which combined telegraphic con- units were disbanded. South Australia had a nections and often radar installations as well. signaling corps from 1885 until 1901. These Timely use of radar required rapid radio units used electric telegraph and visual sig- communications to other units. naling methods. The massive construction effort, which The Australian Corps of Signallers was had been accelerated after mid-1942, contin- formed on 12 January 1906 and consisted of ued until the Allied invasion on D-Day, 6 nine companies located at Sydney, Newcastle, June 1944. The Allied bombing effort that Melbourne, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Ade- preceded their landings concentrated on laide, Perth, Freemantle, Hobart, and Launce- destroying communication links between ston. In some cases a company was spread the Atlantic Wall and inland German com- over two cities. Signaling also existed within mand centers. The Norwegian and Channel the engineer corps, the artillery, a naval Island elements of the Atlantic Wall fortifica- brigade, administrative and instructional

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staff, scouting units, the intelligence corps, played an important role in the Pacific mon- cycle sections, and regimental signalers. The itoring of Japanese military communications Corps of Signallers was merged into the as part of a huge Allied signals intelligence Royal Australian Engineers on 12 July 1912 network. as Signal Engineers. King George VI recognized the achieve- The Divisional Signal Company was ments of the Corps of Signals by granting a formed at Broadmeadows, Victoria (close to Royal Warrant to the corps on 10 November Melbourne), on the outbreak of World War I in 1948, at which time the organization became 1914, and on 19 October, with three Light known as the Royal Australian Corps of Sig- Horse Brigade Signal Troops, it sailed for the nals. The corps served in the Korean War Middle East. The Signal Engineers served at (1950–1953) and during the uprisings in Gallipoli and in Egypt, Palestine, Meso- Malaya and Singapore in the 1950s. A major potamia, and France. During the course of the contribution by the corps was in the Vietnam war, five Divisional Signal Engineer compa- War, and at its peak comprised 16 percent of nies, a Mounted Division Squadron, a Corps all Australian forces there. Company, and the ANZAC (Australian and Australian signal units also served in New Zealand forces) Wireless Squadron were many United Nations (UN) peacekeeping formed. Wireless sets were at first Marconi missions in the second half of the twentieth pack equipment and were used by the Light century and in 1992–1993 provided the bulk Horse Signal Troops. The subsequent wireless of the force communications unit in Cambo- sets and equipment were of British manufac- dia with the UN authority there, a task ture as used by all the empire signal units. shared with the Royal New Zealand Corps After World War I, compulsory military of Signals. training was instituted, and five infantry and Cliff Lord two cavalry divisions were formed, each See also New Zealand: Royal New Zealand with a divisional signal regiment. All signal Corps of Signals; World War I; World units in the Royal Australian Engineers War II became the Australian Corps of Signals on 14 Sources February 1925. With the termination of com- Australia Corps of Signals. 1949. Signals: Story of pulsory service in 1929, the corps’ ranks the Australian Corps of Signals. Sydney: were reduced, and military signaling was Australian Corps of Signals. maintained by a small number of dedicated Barker, Theo. 1987. Signals: A History of the Royal enthusiasts until preparations were made Australian Corps of Signals 1788–1947. Canberra: Royal Australian Corps of Signals. for World War II. Blaxland, J. 1998. A History of the Royal During World War II the corps grew to Australian Corps of Signals 1947 to 1972. 24,000 strong. Australian signals personnel Canberra: Royal Australian Corps of Signals served in North Africa, Greece, and Palestine Corps Committee. before being recalled to Australia in 1942 to Burke, Keast, 1927. With Horse and Morse in Mesopotamia. Sydney: no publisher indicated. meet the Japanese threat. Signals units par- Thyer, Brigadier J. H. Royal Australian Corps of ticipated in the defense of Malaya and Singa- Signals, Corps History, 1906–1918. pore and the hardships of the New Guinea Manuscript, Royal Australian Signals campaign. Australian signal intercept units Archives.

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Automatic Digital Network was a fully transistorized communications (AUTODIN) system that initially linked defense organiza- tions (such as bases, supply depots, and A program of the U.S. Department of major air commands) into a single network Defense, the Automatic Digital Network using high-speed data and teletype commu- (AUTODIN) evolved from two earlier Air nications. Initially, the AUTODIN system Force systems, the Air Force Data Communi- consisted of five automatic switching centers cations (AFDATACOM) system, which was (ASCs) located around the United States. an expansion of the manual Combat Logis- These five centers, which could handle seven tics Network (COMLOGNET). The original million punched cards a day or 100 million concept for upgrading COMLOGNET was words, were saturated by the end of the first to create an automatic, fully electronic, tran- year. The secretary of defense approved four- sistorized, high-speed data network that teen new switching centers to increase the used automatic switching techniques. capacity of the network and extend it around Although initially intended for Air Force the world. use, the system soon became the primary In more than thirty years of operations, the record communications system for the AUTODIN switching centers provided the Department of Defense. U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army, Coast Guard, In 1961, the Air Force demonstrated a pro- other government agencies, and industrial totype of the COMLOGNET that would contractors with a worldwide, high-speed, eventually link 450 bases, air stations, and automatic, electronic data communications civilian suppliers. Western Union leased system. The AUTODIN system provided for five large switching centers and connecting the transmission of narrative and data traffic terminals to the Air Force for this purpose. on a store-and-forward basis. The Defense By November 1962 the first AFDATACOM Communications Agency (DCA) had overall station opened at Norton Air Force Base, responsibility for the AUTODIN system. California, replacing the COMLOGNET The AUTODIN switching centers (ASCs) station. AFDATACOM enabled users to were the heart of the system. They were con- send messages from punched cards, account- nected by trunk lines to form a digital net- ing machines, paper tapes, magnetic tape work and local lines connected them to drives, and teletypewriters. Automatic elec- individual subscriber communications cen- tronic switching centers converted formats, ter terminals. All messages entered the speeds, and differences in codes be -fore the AUTODIN system through the subscriber data were transmitted on the system. The terminals and passed through to the ASC. system became fully operational on When the message was accepted by the ASC, 4 February 1963, and AFDATACOM became the classification and precedence of the mes- a part of the Defense Communications sage was determined and the message was System. relayed to the addressee. The primary purpose of AUTODIN was to The AUTODIN system, based on main- provide a single long-haul system that could frame technology, was highly manpower utilize all available circuits by integrating intensive and could not be easily upgraded automatic switching technology. AUTODIN to meet the growing demands for additional

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types of information. The inability of AUTO - Department of Defense and other users with DIN to meet expanding requirements com- a secure worldwide switched telephone net- bined with the high cost of operating and work. In use for three decades, the system maintaining the system spelled the eventual was closely related to the Automatic Voice end of AUTODIN. Although the system was Network system, which carried only unclas- frequently upgraded, efforts to replace sified conversations. AUTODIN failed because of cost and oper- The U.S. Department of Defense began ational considerations. Consequently, the implementing the AUTOSEVOCOM system Department of Defense was using a system in the mid-1960s. It consisted of a large suite that was limited in its capabilities and ever of equipment: a secure voice cryptographic more costly to maintain. device that was enclosed in a safe; equip- The AUTODIN system was eventually ment that converted analog voice into a clear replaced by the Defense Message System. text digital stream; a key generator that Tommy R. Young II mixed the code key with clear text digital stream and interfaced with a modem and See also Computer; Defense Communications conditioned line; a secure cord board desk- Agency (DCA, 1960–1991); Defense Message System (DMS) mounted patch panel, which was manually operated; and an automatic telephone switch Sources and “red telephone” switches located at Department of Defense, Office of Inspector secure and classified locations. The AUTO- General. 2003. Information Technology Manage- SEVOCOM network included narrowband ment: Transition from the Automatic Digital subscriber terminals that were installed and Network to the Defense Message System. [Online report; retrieved December 2006.] used within a communications center; wide- http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/ band subscriber terminals, which allowed c3i/igautodin.pdf. local secure communications by intercon- Hall, Jared. 2005. “AUTODIN (Automatic necting one of the automatic switches; and a Digital Network).” [Online article; retrieved narrowband trunking unit, which allowed December 2006.] http://jproc.ca/crypto/ autodin.html. long distance secure telephone calls. Thomas S. Snyder, et al. 1986. The Air Force When designing the system, engineers Communications Command: 1938–1986 An accepted a number of limitations in the inter- Illustrated History. [Online information; est of getting it operational quickly. These retrieved December 2006.] http:// included insufficient capacity, the lack of coldwar-c4i.net/COMLOGNET/fact voice recognition capabilities, poor voice _sheet_1.jpg through /fact_sheet_7.jpg; http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/ quality, the inability to hold conference calls, history/western.union. and its need for continual maintenance accompanied by ever-increasing costs. Efforts to improve the system began almost as soon Automatic Secure Voice as it was implemented. Communications By 1980, defense officials decided to (AUTOSEVOCOM) implement an improved system, AUTOSE- VOCOM II, that worked to improve existing Automatic Secure Voice Communications equipment and acquire new equipment that (AUTOSEVOCOM) provided authorized used new technologies. But despite the best

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efforts to update and upgrade AUTOSEVO- rorist attacks of 11 September 2001.) The last COM, the system continued to be costly to AUTOSEVOCOM secure voice switch was maintain and cumbersome to use. Techno- deactivated at the Pentagon in 1994. logical advances in areas such as keying of Tommy R. Young II cryptographic devices and system miniatur- ization offered the opportunity to implement See also Communications Security (COMSEC); an entirely new secure voice system. Miniaturization; Telephone The replacement for AUTOSEVOCOM was the secure telephone unit—generation Sources III (STU-III). The STU-III combined ordinary Mace, George. 2005. “AUTOSEVOCOM I and and secure telephone service over dial-up II.” [Online information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/ public switch telephone networks. Using a autosevocom.html. crypto-ignition key to switch the telephone Proc, Jerry. 2004. “STU III (Secure Telephone from a nonclassified to a secure instrument and KSD-64).” [Online article; retrieved while using public telephone networks, December 2004.] http://www.jproc.ca/ STU-III eliminated many of the problems crypto/stuiii.html. Snyder, Thomas S., et al. 1986. The Air Force associated with AUTOSEVOCOM. (It was Communications Command: 1938–1986—An an STU-III device that President George W. Illustrated History. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Bush used to make and receive calls from a Air Force Communications Command Office Florida public school classroom after the ter- of History.

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Bain, Alexander (1811–1877) First was the notion of scanning an image (usually printed words) so it could be trans- Despite a chronic lack of financial backing, mitted one bit at a time. Second was the use Alexander Bain invented some of the basics of special chemically treated paper to show of both facsimile and telegraph systems the resulting image (almost always letters and during the 1840s in Britain. Both modes of words). Third was the synchronization of communication proved to have important sending and receiving equipment. As effec- military applications in the nineteenth and tive electric motors did not yet exist, his twentieth centuries. system was run by a series of clockwork Born in Watten, Scotland, in October 1811, “motors” actuated either by springs or falling Bain received little formal education, but weights (pendulums). Bain attempted to use hearing a science lecture at about age twelve these mechanisms in a master-slave system helped to set the course of his life. He (one clock controlling another, or many oth- became a clock and instrument maker, or to ers) to aid transmission of graphic messages, use the term of the day, a “mechanic“ or but this never worked satisfactorily and was “mechanist,” working in Wick, Scotland. He soon superseded by the work of others, espe- had an inventive mind and was most active cially Giovanni Caselli, in the 1860s. in telegraphy developments during the Bain became the chief competitor of British 1840s after moving to London. telegraph pioneers William Cooke and Bain proposed what we would today call Charles Wheatstone. The conflict concerned a facsimile telegraph system in 1842 based their relative primacy in the invention of the on the earlier work of the French inventor electric clock and the printing telegraph. Edmond Becquerel. In November 1843 he Cooke and Wheatstone’s Electric Telegraph received a British patent for an electrochem- Company purchased patent rights after Bain ical recording telegraph that includes some successfully defended his own priority. of the basic principles of the fax machine. Bain’s system was patented in December Bain’s contributions to eventual facsimile 1849 in Britain and the United States and was capabilities included three critical elements. used in experiments in 1848–1849 on lines

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between Washington, New York, and Boston Union in 1940 and then occupied by Ger- and between Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scot- many in 1941–1944 during World War II, land, as late as 1852. The tests used Morse each nation suffered tremendous losses. code but were abandoned as no consistently Dominated again by the Soviets from 1945 to useful means existed of perforating the paper 1991, they once again became independent. tape. On the other hand, Bain’s automatic (chemical) telegraph recorder device offered Estonia a dramatic increase in the words-per-minute An engineer company was formed in Tallin, rate of sending—upward of 300 or more. It Estonia, on 15 December 1917 comprising was used for years by the General Post Office, combat engineer and signal units with thirty Britain’s postal system and telecommunica- officers and about 400 men. By February tions carrier. 1918, amid the confusion of the retreating Bain’s health began to fail in the 1870s and Germans and the Bolshevik Revolution in he was struck with paralysis in his legs. He Russia, Estonian forces assumed control over became mentally impaired and was moved the country. On 24 February the Rescue to a “home for incurables” at Broomhill, Committee proclaimed the country’s inde- Kirkintilloch, Glasgow, where he died on 2 pendence, and by 1920 Estonia was officially January 1877. an independent state. The new army had Christopher H. Sterling 50,000 soldiers. In November 1918, the pro- See also Facsimile/Fax; Morse Code; Morse, visional government declared the voluntary Samuel F. B. (1791–1872); Telegraph mobilization of soldiers (and compulsory mobilization of officers) to face advancing Sources Russian troops. On 15 March 1924, the engi- Bain, Alexander. 1844. “Bain’s Printing neering battalion was split into separate sig- Telegraph.” Journal of the Franklin Institute 38: nal and engineer groups. 61. Bain, Alexander. 1852. A Short History of Electric After decades of Soviet and German occu- Clocks. London: Chapman & Hall. pation, on 3 September 1991, the newly inde- Bain, Alexander. 1866. “Automatic Telegraphy.” pendent state of Estonia established its English Mechanic and Mirror of Science 2 defense forces. Professional training began in (February 9): 273–274. June 1992 (including a radio-technical air Marland, E. A. 1964. Early Electrical Communica- defense battalion) and a separate signal bat- tion. London: Abelard-Schuman. Schaffner, Tal. P. 1859. “Bain’s Printing talion was formed on 29 October 1993. Con- Telegraph.” In The Telegraph Manual: A siderable military equipment was imported Complete History and Description, chap. 17. from both Israel and the United States. New York: Pudney & Russell. Latvia On 6 February 1919, a small telephone sec- Baltic Nations tion was formed in Liepaja, Latvia, and was immediately sent to the front lines as Latvia The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and was fighting remnants of the German army Lithuania emerged as independent nations and an invasion from the new Soviet Union. after World War I. Swallowed by the Soviet The section was under the command of

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Colonel Oskars Kalpaks, Latvia’s most Poland, and eventually was used to conduct famous war hero. The section established peace talks with the Soviet Union. The com- communications between combat units at pany also established postal and telegraph the front and became known as 1 Indepen- communications in liberated Latvian territo- dent Battalion, Signal Group. Just a month ries before regular service was established. A later the battalion expanded to a brigade. It signals equipment repair shop was set up to was popularly called the South Latvian repair, replace, and update equipment. In Brigade to distinguish it from the new com- 1920, the telegraph and telephone company bat units appearing in northern Latvia and became part of Army Ordnance. Later, the Estonia. On 15 July 1919 the south and north commander of the Chief Communications brigades joined to form the Latvian Army Department established a substantial head- Command Headquarters Signal Unit, as - quarters, and many other signal units were signed to maintain communications between formed. headquarters and combat units as well as On 9 September 1921 some communica- the Allied nations. The first telegraph line tions units were combined to become the was built in mid-1919 between Riga and two Electrotechnical Battalion as a training insti- smaller towns about 140 miles away. At the tution for future signalers. The unit was reor- same time, the Latvian army conscripted all ganized on 15 May 1935 into the Signal civilians in Riga who were known to have Battalion (Sakaru Bataljons). Administratively had wireless communications experience in the battalion was assigned to the Technical the Russian army during World War I. They Division, but operationally it functioned were assigned to the Army Engineer Com- under the army’s chief of staff. The Signal pany, which had one wireless station that Battalion consisted of a headquarters com- had been abandoned after the German occu- pany, two companies for training noncom- pation. They also operated an old Russian missioned officers in signaling, and a supply naval 10-kilowatt wireless station in Riga company. An operations company also and maintained wireless communications worked directly with army headquarters to with British warships in the Baltic Sea and train personnel in wireless and telegraphy with Warsaw. During October and Novem- for the army. ber 1919, when Latvia was invaded by a With the occupation of Latvia by the Soviet force, this station directed artillery Soviet Union in June 1940, the army became fire from the British warships supporting the Latvian Peoples Army and in September the Latvian army. Later the wireless station a part of the Red Army. Germany and Russia broadcast news and maintained contact (each with Latvian partisans) fought over among divisions. the country from 1941 to 1944, and the pop- To meet the growing demand for army ulation declined by one-third. The limited communications, a separate telegraph and signals capability was based on Russian telephone company was formed on 4 Octo- equipment during the Cold War. ber 1919 with telegraph, telephone, and con- An independent Latvia reemerged in 1991. struction sections. This company maintained On 29 March 2004, Latvia joined the North line communications between Latvian head- Atlantic Treaty Organization, which protects quarters and Latvia’s allies, Estonia and the country’s airspace. The army stopped

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conscription in 2005 and by 2007 had con- 2007.] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ verted to a volunteer professional force. query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+lt0028). Latvia cooperates with Estonia and Lithua- nia in a joint infantry battalion and a naval squadron, which are available for interna- Banker, Grace (1892–1960) tional peacekeeping operations. Grace Banker served the U.S. Army Signal Lithuania Corps as a civilian telephone operator of the In January 1919 a sapper (engineering) com- American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during pany was formed in Lithuania and grew in World War I. Her role as chief operator for strength, eventually becoming an engineer First Army headquarters during the St. Mihiel battalion. Signal specialists were incor - and Meuse-Argonne offensives earned her porated within the battalion. Later a signal the Distinguished Service Medal, the only corps was formed, but it did not become woman to receive that honor during the war. fully independent from the engineers. Lithu- Born 25 October 1892 in Passaic, New Jer- ania’s air force had its genesis in the army sey, Grace Banker was among the first group signal corps and was formally established in of women (commonly called the “Hello 1920. Girls”) sent to France to operate telephone Occupied by the Soviets from 1920 to 1941, switchboards to support AEF. Because of her by Germany from 1941 to 1944, and again by previous experience as a switchboard in - the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991, the structor with AT&T, Banker was placed in country’s military relied totally on Soviet charge of thirty-three women of Telephone equipment, systems, and training. Only with Unit No.1, which sailed from New Jersey on final withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1993 did 6 March 1918. Upon arrival in Paris, Banker Lithuania turn to the West for military sup- was assigned to the headquarters of the plies and advice. Equipment came from Ger- Advance Section in Chaumont sur Haute many and France, and training took place in Marne, which served as General John J. Per- those countries as well. shing’s headquarters. Cliff Lord Banker spent almost five months at Chau- See also Germany: Army; North Atlantic Treaty mont until 25 August 1918, when she was Organization (NATO) Communications & ordered to the First Army headquarters at Information Systems Agency; Russia/Soviet Ligny-en-Barrois, about five miles south of Union: Army; Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) St. Mihiel. With only six operators working in shifts at this forward location, Banker and Sources Estonian Defence Forces. “Chronology of the her team were immersed in supporting the Defence Forces.” [Online information; planning for the upcoming offensive opera- retrieved January 2007.] http://www.mil.ee/ tion. When the St. Mihiel offensive began, index_eng.php?s=ajalugu. Banker and the other women operated the Indylatvians.com. 2005. “Latvia Facts: A Brief switchboards during the opening artillery History of Latvia.” [Online information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www bombardment at the front. When First Army .indylatvians.com/latvia%20facts.htm. headquarters moved to Bar-le-Duc on 20 Library of Congress. 1995. “Lithuania: National September, Banker and her operators dis- Security.” [Online article; retrieved January placed their operations to a facility that had

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be assigned to the Army of Occupation at Coblenz, Germany, Banker accepted and left Paris. While at Coblenz, Banker was pre- sented with the Distinguished Service Medal during a ceremony recognizing her with a citation for “exceptional ability . . . [and] untir- ing devotion to her exacting duties under try- ing conditions . . . to assure the success of the telephone service during the operations of the First Army against the Saint Mihiel salient and the operations to the north of Verdun.” In September 1919, Banker and the other women sailed for home after almost twenty months of service, which had been described as “indispensable” by General Edgar Russel, chief signal officer of AEF. Upon return from the war, women such as Grace Banker, who were considered civilian volunteers and not members of the military, did not receive a formal discharge or even a certificate of ser- Grace Banker, chief telephone operator, First U.S. Army Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces vice. In 1977 Congress finally passed legisla- during World War I was awarded the Distinguished tion that recognized their accomplishments Service Medal. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command and granted them status as veterans. Grace History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) Banker did not live to receive this recogni- tion, as she died on 17 December 1960 in Scarsdale, New York. been greatly damaged from the fighting. Steven J. Rauch While there, Banker and the others endured See also Hello Girls; Telephone; World War I aerial bombardment from German planes, but none incurred injury. They also suffered Sources during a cold, wet autumn in leaky barracks “I Remember.” 1954. Signal Magazine January– that often greeted them with no heat after February: 26–27. Paddock, Grace Banker. 1979. “I Was a Hello long hours at the switchboards. Banker and Girl.” Yankee March: 66–71, 102–107. the others suffered more challenges on 30 Schneider, Dorothy, and Carl Schneider. 1991. October when fire destroyed those barracks. Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in After the armistice ended combat opera- World War I. New York: Viking Press. tions on 11 November 1918, Banker was sent back to Paris, where she was assigned to work at President Woodrow Wilson’s temporary residence, a duty she described as “not partic- Beardslee Telegraph ularly exciting” as she greatly missed the camaraderie and hard work of the front. An innovation of the American Civil War When offered the choice to remain in Paris or (1861–1865), the Beardslee telegraph was

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designed to operate on magneto-electric power and be usable by operators who did not understand Morse code. While it was only partially successful, replacing it became central in the conflict between the Army Sig- nal Corps and the U.S. Military Telegraph Service in 1863. The Union Army sought a portable source of electricity to power its field telegraphs so communications could readily keep up with shifts in military positions. George W. Beard- slee’s 1859 invention of a magneto-electric generator seemed to make that possible. Early in 1862, at the request of the Signal Corps, Beardslee combined his hand- cranked magneto device with a dial tele- graph device developed by Henry J. Rogers to create a portable telegraph wagon “train” suitable for field work. The magnetos (rather The Beardslee magneto-electric telegraph was used by Union forces early in the American Civil War. It did than heavy batteries) generated the power not require batteries and could be operated by men necessary to send electricity over a telegraph with little training, but it required considerable wire. The operator moved a lever to a point maintenance and offered limited range and was thus on Rogers’s dial matching the letter he removed from service by early 1864. (U.S. Army wished to send. On the receiving end, a sim- Signal Center Command History Office, Fort Gordon, ilar dial would move to the corresponding Georgia) position. Thus the signal was sent without either operator having to know Morse code, as the receiving operator needed only to device. This was partially due to the tendency copy down the characters he saw dialed. of the Beardslee/Rogers dials to get out of Initial operations of the Beardslee-equipped synchronization with one another, resulting in telegraph trains at the Battle of Fredericksburg garbled messages (and the need to send the in mid-1862—commanded by the inventor’s machines back for repair). Beardslee operators son Frederick (a captain in the Signal also never gained the same level of familiarity Corps)—seemed to suggest that the device with their equipment as did conventional tele- did what it promised. Beardslee’s firm assem- graph operators. Furthermore, the Beardslee bled about thirty telegraph trains and sixty device lacked the power to send a message telegraph sets for use by various Union more than about five to eight miles, often far armies. A year later at Chancellorsville, how- less than that needed to maintain control over ever, the Beardslee devices performed poorly shifting military forces. under battlefield conditions. Operators had to These accumulating Beardslee drawbacks follow a complex set of procedures for Beard- forced the Signal Corps to revert to tradi- slee operation. Trained operators using a con- tional Morse operation, and thus to recruit ventional Morse telegraph system could send more trained Morse operators. This fanned messages faster than those using a Beardslee the existing competition between Albert

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Myers’s Signal Corps and Anson Stager’s an industry with great impact on all aspects U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS). of communication. Beardslee machines were removed from ser- Bell was born on 3 March 1847 in Edin- vice by 1863, though their ancillary poles, burgh, Scotland, the second of three sons. He insulated wire, wire reels, and wire-laying added the name Graham in 1858 after a fam- methods were used by USMTs for the dura- ily friend. In the 1860s, he attended both the tion of the Civil War. Late in the war both the University of Edinburgh and University Col- Army and the Navy adopted Beardslee’s lege in London. He followed his father by device for electric detonation of subter- 1868 in teaching the deaf to speak. Two years ranean and submarine explosives. later the family immigrated to Canada, set- The Beardslee/Rogers dial device was only tling in Ontario. Bell moved to Boston to one of several different types of dial telegraph teach the next year. machines. Dial telegraph equipment was nei- While on a family visit in Brantford, ther new nor unique to this period. Werner Ontario, in the summer of 1874, Bell first Siemens, for example, had developed one as sketched out his idea of what would become early as 1847. The Beardslee device was the telephone. He also met skilled electrician unique, however, in combining the dial fea- Thomas Watson who would work closely ture with magneto-electric operation. with him in the years to come. On 14 Febru- Christopher H. Sterling ary 1876, Bell filed for his first telephone patent, which was granted three weeks See also American Civil War (1861–1865); Army later—it is often called the single most valu- Signal Corps; Morse Code; Myer, Albert James (1828–1880); Stager, Anson (1825– able patent ever issued (though at the time 1885); Telegraph; U.S. Military Telegraph Bell lacked a working telephone model). On Service (USMTS) 10 March 1876 Bell called Watson in a nearby room for assistance and said the first intelli- Sources gible words spoken over a telephone. Robbins Raines, Rebecca. 1996. Getting the Bell had not been seeking what we think Message Through: A Branch History of the US Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Center of as the telephone, but rather an improved of Military History. form of telegraphy that might prove helpful Signal Corps Civil War. “Beardslee Telegraph in training the deaf to speak, possibly by Machine.” [Online information; retrieved visibly recording sound. After all, he lacked November 2004.] http://www.beardslee formal training and practical experience in telegraph.org/. Thompson, George Raynor. 1954. “Civil War electricity (one reason he hired Watson to Signals.” Military Affairs 18 (Winter): 188–201. assist). His developmental effort in that Thompson, George Raynor. 1958. “Develop- Boston garret in the mid-1870s was more a ment of the Sig C. Field Telegraph.” Signal matter of trial-and-error tinkering than pur- July: 28–31, 34. suit of clear, scientifically based research. As with any inventor, luck played a big part in this story. Bell, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone device was publicly (1847–1922) demonstrated at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in the summer of 1876. After Inventor of the telephone in the mid-1870s, that began a series of demonstrations in the Alexander Graham Bell created the basis for United States and abroad as Bell and a small

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apparent, ending up in a victory for Bell before the Supreme Court in 1887. Bell became an American citizen in late 1882. He took part in the opening of long dis- tance services from New York to Chicago (1892) and across the country (1915). After about 1885, he had little to do with further development of the telephone device or busi- ness, essentially retiring on his royalty income. He focused on other areas of interest such as teaching the deaf, medical electronics, recording, the National Geographic Society, kites and early airplanes, and fast motorboats. Bell died on 2 August 1922 at his home at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, Canada. Christopher H. Sterling See also American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T); Telephone

Sources Bruce, Robert V. 1973. Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude. Boston: Little, Brown. Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell in the Suit Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents, The. 1908. Boston: American Bell American inventor Alexander Graham Bell invented Telephone Co. (reprinted by Arno Press, the telephone, which he demonstrated to the public at 1974). the 1876 Exposition in Philadelphia. Telephones Grosvenor, Edwin S., and Morgan Wesson. became vitally important in military headquarters and 1997. Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and operations by the turn of the twentieth century. Times of the Man Who Invented the Telephone. New York: Abrams. (Library of Congress) Library of Congress. 2000. “The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress: 1862–1939.” [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] http://memory.loc group of backers sought more support. The .gov/ammem/bellhtml/bellhome.html. telephone was competing with entrenched telegraph interests, which offered service everywhere while the telephone was limited in its first decades only to local service. Nor Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) could a telephone provide a permanent record as the telegraph did, making it less A subsidiary of American Telephone & Tele- useful to government or business. Multiple graph Co. (AT&T) until 1995, Bell Telephone patent battles developed beginning in 1878 Laboratories (BTL) was formed in late 1925 as the value of the telephone slowly became to merge the research operations of AT&T

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and its Western Electric manufacturing sub- Semi-Automatic Ground Environment warn- sidiary, which then shared ownership. Based ing network were another. A digital data sys- primarily around Murray Hill, New Jersey, tem developed for the Navy allowed an after 1941, for decades BTL formed Amer- aircraft carrier to maintain simultaneous two- ica’s premier commercial research organiza- way links with up to a hundred airplanes at tion and included many Nobel Prize winners a time. A variety of surface and underwater among its staff. surveillance systems were also designed for Soon after America’s entry into World War the Navy. BTL was the prime designer of the II, four-fifths of BTL work was focused on switching and transmission elements of the military communications and weapons con- Automatic Voice Network communication trol systems, including extensive work with system for the Department of Defense. radar. BTL had already begun developmen- All of BTL’s military communications tal work in microwave and coaxial cable sys- efforts were hugely expensive and were tems, which had extensive military and funded by AT&T’s long monopoly on civilian applications. From 1941 to 1945, BTL domestic voice communications. BTL’s orga- personnel worked on approximately 1,200 nization was first divided when AT&T was military projects. These typically involved broken up in 1984, with about half of the BTL design and development for devices employees going to Bell Communication produced by Western Electric. Most were Research or the regional operating compa- shrouded in secrecy at the time, including nies and half remaining with AT&T. The the “Project X,” or SIGSALY, system initiated whole regulatory economics sector (includ- for the Signal Corps in late 1940 that by 1943 ing a respected scholarly quarterly) was scrambled the transatlantic telephone con- transferred to non-Bell organizations. A nection linking Britain and U.S. political and decade later, most of the remaining lab per- military leaders. Teletypewriter circuits were sonnel and facilities were spun off as part of constantly upgraded in both their capa city Lucent Technologies, with only a small por- and security. BTL developed airplane-laid tion remaining with AT&T. With the decline wire systems for rapid expansion of combat of the telecommunications business after telecommunications links. Mobile radio sys- 2000, as well as outsourcing of most military tems included a rugged “tank set,” including equipment purchases, most BTL lab person- a version for aircraft. BTL produced numer- nel and facilities were terminated, with a ous communications training manuals for few converted to working on short-term both Army and Navy use. product or service development. Certainly best known of all BTL inventions Christopher H. Sterling was the transistor, announced in 1948, which See also Alaska Communications System; heralded the beginnings of the solid state rev- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. olution that would sweep electronics. In the (AT&T); Microwave; Semi-Automatic quest for military miniaturization, transistor- Ground Environment (SAGE); SIGSALY; ized products led the way by the late 1950s. Teleprinter/Teletype; Transistor Development of communication links for sev- Sources eral Arctic and Alaskan missile defense sys- Buckley, Oliver E. 1944–1945. “Bell Laboratories tems (including WHITE ALICE) was one and the War.” Bell Telephone Magazine 23 application; communication aspects of the (Winter): 227–240.

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Fagen, M. D., ed. 1978. A History of Science and itary versions of passenger airliners or con- Technology in the Bell System: National Service verted bombers; none had been designed to in War and Peace, 1925–1975, chaps. 5, 12. carry cargo. The weather was usually stormy New York: Bell Telephone Laboratories. Ingles, Harry C. 1945. “Electrical Communica- with dense clouds, rain, and wind, forcing tions in World-Wide Warfare.” Bell Telephone pilots to fly on instrument flight rules (rely- Magazine 24 (Summer): 54–100. ing on cockpit instruments rather than visual flight rules) 70 to 80 percent of the time in winter. Navigational aids were few, commu- Berlin Airlift (1948–1949) nications offices were short-handed, and many of those available for duty were inex- Communications, especially air traffic con- perienced. Overshadowing the operation trol, made the Berlin Airlift possible. Ar- was an ever-present possibility of Soviet range ments made by the Allies during interference. World War II for the occupation of Germany British and American controllers at the assigned sectors of Berlin to the British, Berlin Air Traffic Control Center served as French, and Americans without guarantee- the brains of the airlift, orchestrating arrivals ing access to those sectors across the Soviet and departures. Flight plans were standard- zone of occupation. When the Soviets closed ized down to the smallest detail. During the surface transportation routes on 24 June flight, pilots and controllers relied on radar 1948, British and American aircraft supplied and radio to adjust timing and intervals the Western sectors for nearly a year. Coor- between aircraft. Twenty-one low-frequency dination of aircraft routes, landings, and beacons, three low-frequency radio ranges, takeoffs depended on reliable air and radar and six very high frequency ranges were links, while an extensive ground support installed at critical spots along the flight network was tied together by telephone, tele- paths. Ground control approach (GCA) graph, and teletype. Initially a makeshift radar units were diverted from U.S. airports affair intended to deal with a temporary and military bases. Starting in December, emergency, the airlift evolved into a complex radar at Tempelhof spaced all aircraft in the effort. From 78 aircraft at the start, it corridors. Its operators guided pilots until expanded to nearly 400 at its peak. they were close to the city, then turned them Planners calculated the city’s need at 4,500 over to GCA controllers, who talked them tons a day (later increased to 5,620), an enor- down to a safe landing. mous number in light of the technological An American after-action report hailed limits of the time. No operation on this scale GCA as “possibly the greatest contributing had been attempted before, and the odds factor to the success of the airlift,” an assess- looked very long. Western air transports ment echoed by the Royal Air Force. U.S. con- could use three narrow air corridors to the trollers in Berlin averaged 7,700 radio contacts city, each 20 miles wide, and land at two air- a month before the blockade, and more than fields (later four—Gatow, Tempelhof, Tegel, 127,000 during it. Pilots filed 1,767 flight plans and—for flying boats—Havelsee) in the city. with Berlin air traffic control in April 1948, Peak efficiency required standardization, but and 42,054 a year later. The highest one-day the British flew a dozen different aircraft total was the famous “Easter Parade,” 15–16 types and the Americans five. All were mil- April 1949: 1,398 flights landed and took off

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from Berlin, delivering 12,941 tons of supplies. United States with his parents at the age of The airlift continued after the Russians lifted nine. He graduated from the University of the blockade 12 May 1949, as the Allies stock- Chicago with a doctor of philosophy degree piled supplies against any renewed blockage. in 1906 and went to work for the U.S. The airlift ended 30 September 1949. Weather Bureau. Blair joined the Army on 3 Daniel Harrington September 1917 and was commissioned as a See also Army Airways Communications major in the Aviation Section of the Signal System, Airways and Air Communications Officers’ Reserve Corps. During World War Service (AACS, 1938–1961) I, he served in France as officer in charge of the Meteorological Section, Signal Corps, Sources American Expeditionary Force. Immediately Pearcy, Arthur. 1997. Berlin Airlift. Shrewsbury, following the war, he served as a member of UK: Airlife. Snyder, Thomas S., et al. 1991. Air Force the technical subcommittee of the Aeronau- Communications Command: 1938–1991, tical Committee at the Paris Peace Confer- An Illustrated History, 3d ed., 49–58. ence (1919). He was then assigned as officer Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force in charge of the Meteorological Section, Communications Command Office Office of the Chief Signal Officer. One of his of History. assignments was forecasting the weather for “A Special Study of Operation ‘Vittles.’” 1949. Aviation Operations Magazine April (Special the first around-the-world flight, conducted issue): 33–46. by Army aircraft in 1924. Blair graduated U.S. Air Force. 1949. Berlin Airlift: A USAFE from the Signal School at Camp Alfred Vail Summary, 39–50. Wiesbaden, Germany: (which became Fort Monmouth in 1925) Headquarters, United States Air Forces in and then from the Command and General Europe. Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1926. Blair took charge of the Engineering and Blair, William Richards Research Division in the Office of the Chief (1874–1962) Signal Officer that same year. He served as director of the Signal Corps Laboratories at Considered the father of American radar, Fort Monmouth from 1930 until his promo- William Richards Blair’s inventions and their tion to colonel and then his retirement on 31 military uses have included the detection of October 1938. While acting as director of the aircraft, the detection of anti-aircraft fire, laboratories, Blair pioneered the work of detection and location of ships, and air and radio direction finding on meteorological ocean navigation. Commercial uses have balloons and encouraged experimental work included aircraft and ship navigation and in infrared, heat detection, radio detection, flight control. He held eleven patents, which, and pulse equipment. in addition to radar, included a “radiomete- In the late 1920s, Blair had outlined a need orograph,” a forerunner to the radiosonde for radio detection as a means of identifying that was carried by a balloon to transmit hostile aircraft. Under his leadership, a com- weather data back to earth. plete workable radar set had been developed Blair was born in County Derry, Ireland, at Fort Monmouth and demonstrated for the on 7 November 1874 and immigrated to the secretary of war and Congress by 1937.

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Locating and tracking targets by radio also the site of many skirmishes during the echoes is commonly regarded as one of the English Civil War in the 1640s. most important contributing factors to the A Royal Navy shutter telegraph relay sta- Allied victory in World War II. tion was built in 1806 near the racecourse on A top secret security classification re- the site now known as Telegraph Clump. The stricted Blair from applying for a patent Admiralty shutter telegraph was designed to for his radar pulse echo technique until convey messages from London to the Naval June 1945. When he finally applied, the U.S. Dockyards of both Portsmouth and Ply- Navy, AT&T, Raytheon, the Radio Corpora- mouth. The relay station was operated by a tion of America, and other companies con- team of three men and remained in use until tested his claim. He was not officially 1825. Yeomanry and volunteer units of credited with the invention of radar until Dorsetshire continued to use Blandford Race 20 August 1957 when he received patent Down as a training ground during the first number 2,803,819, entitled “Object Locating half of the nineteenth century. In August 1872, System.” The government was given a roy- a large army exercise was held in southern alty-free license. England and C Telegraph Troop of the Royal Blair died in Fair Haven, New Jersey, on 2 Engineers—the forebears of today’s Royal September 1962 at eighty-seven years of age. Signals—sent personnel (2 officers, 108 men, Melissa S. Kozlowski and 80 troop horses) to provide the commu- See also Fort Monmouth, New Jersey nications for the field army. At the start of World War I in 1914, a hut- Sources ted camp was built at Blandford. A large Clark, Ernie. 1997. “Blair Hall Honors Past number of reservists were called for full- Hero.” Monmouth Message (11 July). time service with the outbreak of war. As “Father of Radar—It’s Official.” 1957. Electronic the Royal Navy had an excess of volunteers, Week August: 5–6. “Fort Monmouth’s Guest House Dedicated a Royal Naval Division was formed at in Honor of Late Col. William R. Blair.” Blandford. A base depot and training camp 1969. Monmouth Message, 6 March. were established in November 1914, and a “Retirement of Col. William R. Blair.” 1939. German prisoner of war camp was soon Signal Corps Bulletin January–May: established nearby. 86–88. Rapid development of the camp was something of an engineering feat. All mate- rials were brought to the Blandford Forum Blandford Camp railway station, from which steam tractors and horses hauled them three miles to the Since the mid-1960s Blandford Camp has been camp site. When finished it was a small com- home to the British Royal Corps of Signals munity with churches, a hospital, canteens, and its historical museum. Located near the and a railway line and station. The navy Georgian market town of Blandford Forum in moved out in 1918 and was briefly replaced the south of England, Blandford Camp owes by Royal Air Force administrative units. At its name to the races, wrestling, and jumping the end of 1919, the camp closed and the contests that were held in the area annually wooden huts and camp’s railway line were during the seventeenth century. The area was sold and the site returned to agricultural use.

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In 1939 the camp was reactivated and a administrative unit for the Royal School of new hutted camp built as a mobilization and Signals and carries out basic training and training center for reservists called up to promotion courses for potential noncommis- meet the threat from Nazi Germany. Later, sioned officers as well as basic training for Royal Artillery anti-aircraft units trained on the Territorial Army soldiers of the Royal the site and it became a battle training camp. Signals. The camp is also the home to several With the large buildup of Allied forces in other military entities. Britain during 1943–1944, the training camp Danny Johnson was converted for use by U.S. Army general See also Semaphore (Mechanical Telegraphs); hospital personnel. After having treated United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals some 20,000 patients, the facility was closed (it is commemorated by Roosevelt Memorial Sources Park, located alongside the Royal Signals Bridge, Maureen, and John Pegg. 2001. Call to Arms: A History of Military Communications Headquarters Mess). After World War II, the from the Crimean War to the Present Day. camp was converted to its original use as a Tavistock, UK: Focus Publishing. training site for the Royal Artillery and Royal Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal Army Service Corps (later to become the Corps of Signals. Unit Histories of the Corps Royal Corps of Transport) and other units. (1920–2001), and its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: Helion. In 1960, a signal regiment was the first Warner, Philip. 1989. The Vital Link: The Story of Royal Corps of Signals unit to move into the Royal Signals, 1945–1985. London: Leo facility. Four years later, Blandford Camp Cooper. was selected to be the home of the School of Signals, construction for which was com- pleted in September 1971, though the school Bletchley Park had moved to Blandford in 1967. The loca- tion permitted its engineering officers to be Bletchley Park (BP to everyone involved) close to the centers of research and develop- was a large Victorian mansion on a country ment. The school (now the Royal School of estate located about 50 miles northwest of Signals) was responsible for management London. It was secretly purchased in 1938 by and technical courses for Royal Signals offi- the Government Code & Cipher School cers and noncommissioned officers. (GC&CS) to become the center of British mil- In the early 1990s, the face of Blandford itary code-breaking efforts during World Camp changed considerably with new con- War II. Bletchley’s wartime function was struction from 1992 to 1996 to accommodate highly secret during the war and remained soldier training requirements that resulted so for three decades afterward. Only in the from the closure of several other bases. The mid-1970s did the story of code breaking Royal School of Signals was placed under and Bletchley’s development of proto-com- command of the Army Individual Training puters used in the code-breaking process Organization in 1996, which became the (particularly the Colossus) begin to come Army Training and Recruiting Agency a year out. Parts of the surviving site now form a later. The headquarters of the corps also museum open to the public. moved to the site from London. The 11 Sig- After operating in a downtown London nal Regiment based at Blandford is the location for many years, in the late summer

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of 1939 the GC&CS relocated away from the wireless listening posts located around city, to a 600-acre Victorian estate, Bletchley Britain. By 1944 a large number of Special Park. BP was located near several rail and Liaison Units controlled Bletchley’s distrib- road links roughly equidistant between ution of the “Top Secret Ultra” decrypts to Oxford and Cambridge, which would sup- selected senior military and naval officials. ply many of its mathematical and other Decrypts also went to only a handful of the experts. The move got the GC&CS out into most senior government officials, including the countryside, thus achieving two goals: Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Very few shifting the code-breaking operation away people ever saw the actual decrypted mes- from likely London bombing and making it sages (save for the naval decrypts, all of more isolated for improved security. Initial which were sent to the Admiralty), which code breakers, many of them academics were usually restated to disguise their origin. from the two universities, occupied rooms in By 1942, a few Americans joined the British the mansion or its outbuildings. effort at BP, guided after mid-1943 by an As the number of employees rapidly agreement between the two countries to expanded, however, a series of quickly con- cooperate in the code-breaking process. structed wood-and-asbestos, one-story build- Americans then worked in Huts 3 and 6 and ings began to cover the estate’s grounds, each staffed some of the bombes. such “hut” assigned a specific function. “Hut The GC&CS moved out of crowded Bletch- 6,” for example, helped to break German ley after World War II (first to Eastcote and army and Luftwaffe coded messages trans- later to Cheltenham), and the site was used mitted with the Enigma machine. Decoding primarily for training by government agencies was initially a slow process, but soon hun- devoted to aviation and telecommunications. dreds and then thousands of messages flowed British Telecom moved out of BP in the early in daily, necessitating a dramatically increased 1980s and the site was nearly turned over to pace for decoding. In 1942 Bletchley’s huts developers for housing, but it was preserved were supplemented by the first permanent by the efforts of dedicated volunteers. multistory, blast-proof buildings (though they Christopher H. Sterling were still called huts, the names of which des- ignated specific roles rather than locations). By See also Arlington Hall; Code Breaking; the end of the war, BP had expanded from Computer; Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; employing a few dozen people to more than Government Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Magic; Tiltman, John Hessell 10,000 workers of all types. BP saw the devel- (1894–1982); Turing; Alan Mathison (1912– opment of increasingly sophisticated means of 1954); Ultra; Welchman, Gordon (1906–1985); breaking Enigma and other coded messages, Y Service from electro-mechanical “bombe” devices to the sophisticated Colossus vacuum tube– Sources powered computers (nearly a dozen by 1945) Bletchley Park National Codes Centre. Home that greatly speeded up the process of reading page. [Online information; retrieved January 2004.] http://www.bletchleypark messages. .org.uk/. BP, also called Station X, operated at the Enever, Ted. 1999. Britain’s Best-Kept Secret: apex of an immense code-breaking effort Ultra’s Base at Bletchley Park. 3rd ed. Stroud, that depended on dozens of “Y Service” UK: Alan Sutton.

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Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. 1993. wireless equipment in London, Paris, and Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Berlin. As a result of his evaluations, he London: Oxford University Press. placed an order on 24 August 1899 through Smith, Michael. 1998. Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park. London: Channel 4 Books. the Siemens agent in Johannesburg for three Smith, Michael, and Ralph Erskine, eds. 2001. Siemens and Halske wireless stations. If sat- Action this Day. London: Bantam. isfied with their performance, he planned to order three more. The equipment, however, never reached the Boers. War broke out in Boer War Wireless (1899–1902) October and the British traced the customs paperwork. The equipment was confiscated During the years 1899–1902, war raged on in Cape Town, and some of the instruments the southern tip of the African continent. were cannibalized by the British army for its The conflict between Britain and the Afrikan- own use. ers (Boers) of South Africa struck a major In contrast, British army use of wireless blow to Pax Britannica, resulting in the most during the war was prompted by Guglielmo devastating military losses for Britain since Marconi. Always the entrepreneur, Marconi the Napoleonic Wars. The war is remem- saw an opportunity to promote his wireless bered for the refinement of several military telegraph system and offered to send wire- tactics including guerrilla warfare by the less equipment and company engineers with Boers, the infamous civilian concentration the British troops shipping out to South camps established by the British—and the Africa. On 24 November1899, equipment for first use of wireless telegraphy by an army erecting five portable wireless stations and and navy on active service in a military oper- six Marconi engineers arrived in Cape Town. ational area. The potential benefits of using The equipment first provided ship-to-shore wireless technology for military purposes communications during troop disembarka- was appreciated by both the Boers and the tion. Wireless equipment was successfully British, but the timing and manner in which demonstrated on 4 December at Cape Town this application evolved, and the final out- Castle in front of the military staff and come, was very different for the two sides. invited dignitaries. In mid-December, the In February 1898, C. K. van Trotsenburg, equipment was carried into the field by two general manager of telegraphs in the South separate units going to the relief of the African Republic, initiated confidential corre- besieged towns of Kimberly and Ladysmith. spondence with Siemens Brothers in London Over the next two months, however, events to explore purchasing wireless telegraphic took an expected turn for the British as the equipment. He had researched the new tech- wireless equipment was moved inland for nology, and with tensions building with the the army’s use. British in South Africa, he sought a more British army field trials of the Marconi secure communications network by in - equipment were soon considered a failure as stalling wireless links between the Boer mil- communication between the portable field itary headquarters in Pretoria, five forts stations was irregular at best. The causes for surrounding the city, and a further fort in the failure have since been variously attrib- Johannesburg. He traveled to Europe in June uted to equipment design, meteorological con- 1899 and visited companies manufacturing ditions, and poor grounding conductivity in

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the South African soil. Whatever the cause, Burns, Russell. 2004. Communications: An finger-pointing started between the army International History of the Formative Years. and Marconi, and on 12 February 1900 the London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. The Electron and Sea Power. director of Army Telegraphs ordered the London: P. Davies. equipment dismantled and removed. Pakenham, Thomas. The Boer War. New York: The army’s failure, however, became a Random House. Royal Navy success. By March 1900, the five Marconi wireless sets were installed on five cruisers in Delagoa Bay off the coast of Lourenco Marques (now Maputo, Mozam- Britain, Battle of (1940) bique). Wireless was used successfully for communications among the five ships, which The aerial Battle of Britain turned back a were securing a blockade against supplies threatened German invasion in the fall of being landed and delivered to Boer forces in 1940. In addition to the aircraft, two inte- the Transvaal. In addition, by connecting a grated technologies played a large part— land telegraph line to one of the wireless- radar and the effective use of radio and equipped ships anchored near shore, the ground telephone links. The British Royal remaining four Royal Navy cruisers were able Air Force (RAF) system of command and to communicate with the distant navy head- control made the difference in what some quarters in Simonstown, Cape Colony, while termed the “narrow margin” of victory. at sea up to 100 kilometers away. Initially developed in the 1930s by Robert The Royal Navy’s success in utilizing Watson-Watt and others, the first radar sta- wireless in the Boer War theater greatly tion was operational by 1937. By 1940, the aided the rapid development and implemen- RAF had in place fourteen Chain Home tation of wireless throughout the navy. The radio direction finding (RDF) stations, most British army did not pursue wireless as vig- equipped with four 350-foot transmitting orously. As a result, by the advent of World towers holding a curtain aerial array. Incom- War I, the Royal Navy was much more ing attacking aircraft could be located 100 advanced in its use of wireless than the miles away up to a height of 10,000 feet. British army. Information about incoming German air Doug Penisten raids from the Chain Home stations as well as ground observer reports were transferred See also Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937); to Fighter Command headquarters at Bent- United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; ley Priory and to British fighter squadrons United Kingdom: Royal Navy sent up to do battle. Low-flying aircraft Sources could sometimes get in underneath the radar Baker, Duncan. 2006. “Wireless Telegraphy in curtain until “low” RDF stations were added South Africa at the Turn of the Twentieth to the network. Century.” In History of Wireless, edited by The radar system was but one part of the Tapan Sarkar et al. New York: John Wiley. extensive RAF control network that made Baker, William. 1970. A History of the Marconi Company. London: Methuen. British victory possible. Large regions of the Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy. country were assigned to groups that were London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. subdivided into sectors. Local control rooms

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German fighters. The instruction to switch it on was therefore “Squawk your Parrot” (that term is still used today as modern transpon- der codes are known as “squawks”). Anti- aircraft guns and searchlights were an integrated part of the system. Night fighting became possible with airborne ground con- trol interception radar in November 1940, which, along with special training, allowed British fighter units to take on attacking Ger- man aircraft. The Germans soon caught up with radar of their own. They also used a special radio navigational system called “crooked leg” (knickebein), first used in August–September 1940. This was a blind-bombing system that utilized radio direction to assist aerial navi- gation. Operating on 30 MHz, it was based on the Lorenz blind-landing system that had been pioneered in the 1930s. Pilots flew This Chain Home radar antenna, mounted on a 185- along one beam, dropping their bombs when foot tower, was a central part of the Royal Air Force’s they crossed a second beam. The British technological defense against the German air attack in developed means of locating the two knicke- the Battle of Britain. Multiple similar radar facilities bein transmitters in France and either were tied to RAF central command by telephone links jammed their signals or knocked them out enabling rapid fighter defense response to oncoming from the air. German aircraft. (Bettmann/Corbis) In his soon-to-be-immortal words about the British fighter pilots, British Prime Minis- ter Winston Churchill told the House of Com- were linked by telephone to group and mons early in the battle (20 August 1940) that Fighter Command group headquarters in “Never in the field of human conflict was so Uxbridge, west of London. A filter room much owed by so many to so few.” would take in all the information (which Christopher H. Sterling after April 1940 could include Ultra decodes See also Airplanes; Bletchley Park; Enigma; of German Lufwaffe signals), which was Germany: Air Force; Identification, Friend or organized for display on large table maps Foe (IFF); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); with both British squadrons and German air Ultra; United Kingdom: Royal Air Force; fleets assigned codes. British aircraft carried World War II “pip-squeak” radar that allowed their posi- Sources tions to be plotted from the ground. Dempster, Derek, and Derek Wood. 1961. The They also carried a secret identification, Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the friend or foe device, code named “Parrot,” so Rise of Air Power 1930–1940. New York: ground controllers could tell British from McGraw-Hill.

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His Majesty’s Stationery Office. 1941. The Battle codes to pass messages quickly. Alexander of Britain: An Air Ministry Account of the Great had trained on the method while serving as Days from 8th August–31st October 1940. assistant to U.S. Army Major Albert J. Myer, London: HMSO. Overy, Richard. 2002. The Battle of Britain: The who invented the concept, equipment, and Myth and the Reality. New York: Norton. codes that entered Union Army use in 1860. Royal Air Force Museum. 1990. Against the Alexander, convinced of the system’s via- Odds: The Battle of Britain Experience. London: bility despite many skeptics, recruited and Royal Air Force Museum. trained signal personnel, reconnoitered the ground, and selected sites for four ele- vated signal stations to support Confederate Bull Run, Battle of (1861) positions. On the morning of 21 July, Alexander was On 21 July 1861 the first great battle of the at the signal station on the Wilcoxen farm, American Civil War occurred near Manassas east of Manassas. With the sun behind him in Junction and Bull Run Creek in northern Vir- the east, at about 8:30 a.m. Alexander ob- ginia, about 25 miles from Washington DC. served a sudden flash of light as he looked There a 35,000-man Union Army under the toward his signal station near the Van Ness command of Irvin McDowell fought two house on the left. Alexander later reported, Confederate armies of about 33,000 men “It was about 8 miles from me, a faint gleam, under P. G. T. Beauregard and Joseph John- but I had a fine glass & well trained eyes, & ston. Both sides anticipated a decisive battle, I knew at once what it was.” He had sighted perhaps ending the war quickly. What nei- the glitter of muskets, bayonets, and cannon ther side anticipated, however, was that of McDowell’s flanking movement to cross application of a new communications con- Bull Run at Sudley’s Ford. He quickly wig- cept would prove decisive in the Confeder- wagged the station nearest Nathan Evans’s ate victory. Confederate brigade, the closest unit at the Beauregard decided to apply economy of far left of the line, with a warning message: force measures by positioning several “Look out for your left. You are flanked.” brigades on his left flank to guard key cross- Evans quickly repositioned his force to block ing points south of Bull Run Creek while at the Union threat until reinforcements could the same time massing the bulk of his force on arrive. Alexander also notified Beauregard, his right to attack north toward Centerville. who began to funnel forces to his threatened What he did not know was that McDowell flank. The delaying forces (about 2,800 men) had much the same plan and had massed his held off Union troops for about ninety min- army for a wide-turning maneuver west of utes until a stronger defense could blunt the Centerville to hit the Confederates at their Union attack. weakest points in the area of Sudley’s Ford, Ironically, while Alexander was proving cross Bull Run, and then destroy Beauregard’s the value of the wig-wag system against the left flank near Matthews Hill. very army it was designed for, Myer was In preparation for battle, Beauregard frustrated in an attempt to apply another allowed Captain E. Porter Alexander to set new technology in the fight. He backed use up a newly invented visual communications of an observation balloon that he hoped to system called “wig-wag” signal flags and use for reconnaissance and communication

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 69 Bush, Vannevar to McDowell’s headquarters. To move it Bush, Vannevar (1890–1974) quickly to the battle, Myer ordered the bal- loon tethered to a wagon. However, in his One of America’s scientific and engineering haste to not miss the action, Myer moved too leaders in the first half of the twentieth quickly and the balloon was soon tangled in century, Vannevar Bush developed an early low-hanging trees and torn to shreds. Thus analog computing device useful in code he found himself without a wig-wag system breaking and promoted development of or any other unique signal capability for the radar and the atomic bomb. He was a strong battle. By the end of the day, the Union Army advocate of both wartime and Cold War retreated back across Bull Run Creek and university-based scientific work for the the Confederates celebrated a decisive tacti- defense establishment. cal victory. Born 11 March 1890 in Everett, Massachu- The Confederate victory at Bull Run can setts, Bush graduated from Tufts College be directly attributed to the success of with undergraduate and master’s engineer- Alexander’s signal stations. This success ing degrees (1913). After a brief stint as a would lead to early Confederate adoption of U.S. Navy inspector, he earned a doctorate of a separate signal corps as an important bat- English degree from both Harvard Univer- tlefield arm. Myer must have felt a bitter sat- sity and Massachusetts Institute of Technol- isfaction that he had been correct about the ogy (MIT) (1917). During World War I he value of such a tactical communication sys- worked on magnetic methods of submarine tem, though it was employed by an enemy detection for the Navy, though the device against his own army. he developed for that purpose was not prop- Steven J. Rauch erly employed at the time. After the war he served on the faculty and administration See also Airships and Balloons; Alexander, (rising to become dean of the School of Engi- Edward Porter (1835–1910); American Civil neering) of MIT for twenty years. He was a War (1861–1865); Confederate Army Signal cofounder of what became Raytheon in the Corps; Flags; Myer, Albert James (1828– 1880); Stager, Anson (1825–1885) early 1920s. Bush also became president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC Sources in 1938, serving as head of the research fund- Alexander, E. Porter. 1989. Fighting for the ing entity until 1955. Confederacy. Chapel Hill: University of North As he sought methods of automating Carolina Press. human thinking and memory, Bush became Alexander, E. Porter. 1907. Military Memoirs of a a pioneer in the analog era of computing. In Confederate. New York: Da Capo (reprint). Davis, William C. 1977. Battle at Bull Run. Baton the early 1930s he devised what he termed Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. the “differential analyzer,” which was a large Hennessy, Juliette A. 1985. The United States and complex analog computing device that Army Air Arm: April 1861 to April 1917. never emerged from the experimental stage. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force His “rapid selector” would scan microfilm History. Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the records to retrieve needed information, mak- Message Through: A Branch History of the US ing it easier for researchers to keep track of Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: U.S. the exponential expansion of human knowl- Army Center of Military History. edge. Four of the desk-size instruments were

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built. Perhaps most importantly he con- spokesman for what science could accom- ceived of a “memex,” which was a prototype plish. His Science, the Endless Frontier (1945) for what we now think of as an individual promoted the need for continuing govern- computer—in this case a microfilm-based ment support so that technology could con- device to allow for rapid storage and tinue to help the United States. He helped to retrieval of information. Much of his own create the government-university-business experimental work was soon superseded by connections that would help to apply scien- the rapid post–World War II development tific research to defense needs during the Cold of digital computing devices. His “As We War. Bush saw government agencies, and May Think” article in Atlantic (July 1945) especially the military services, as the key was prophetic of the advent of today’s patrons of scientific research work. Eventually hypertext. the holder of forty-nine patents, Bush died 28 During World War II, Bush created (1940) June 1974 in Belmont, Massachusetts. and headed the National Defense Research Christopher H. Sterling Committee, which was soon subsumed in See also Computer; National Defense Research the larger, congressionally funded Office of Committee (NDRC) Scientific Research and Development, which he also directed from 1941 to 1947. He thus Sources managed the activities of approximately Burke, Colin. 1994. Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex. 6,000 scientists involved in military research Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. (including many working with the Manhat- Bush, Vannevar. 1970. Pieces of the Action. New tan Project) during the war. He became the York: Morrow. first director of the National Science Founda- Nyce, James M., and Paul Kahn, eds. 1991. From tion in 1950. In all of these positions, he fos- Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine. San Diego, CA: Academic tered a new respect for science and scientists. Press. In his extensive publications and drawing Zachary, G. Pascal. 1997. Endless Frontier: on his many academic and government posi- Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American tions, Bush became a persuasive and popular Century. New York: Free Press.

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Camp Crowder, Missouri headquarters established in October 1942 to administer this group of schools was desig- Camp Crowder was the largest U.S. Army nated the Central Signal Corps Training Cen- Signal Corps training post during World War ter. The center provided technical training in II. Located in the foothills of the Ozark radio operations, radio repair, and high- Mountains, ground was broken for the base power station operation and maintenance. on 30 August 1941, and the first troops By 1943, Camp Crowder had expanded to moved in five days before the Pearl Harbor 43,000 acres. attack by the Japanese. The post was named Camp Crowder activated signal units by for Major General Enoch H. Crowder, a the hundreds as well as aircraft-warning units native Missourian who authored the Selec- (for radar-warning services to the Army’s air tive Service [draft] Act of World War I. forces). Crowder also trained numerous radio Camp Crowder occupied some 75 square intelligence and signal information and mon- miles. It had not been intended for signals itoring companies as well as joint-assault sig- use but rather for infantry training. With nal companies to meet the amphibious assault changing requirements, Crowder was communications needs of joint Army/Navy largely turned over to signals training. operations. Force requirements were so press- Although 350 buildings were built initially, ing, and often arose so suddenly, that students more construction was needed within six were taken out of school with their course months. Army signal recruits spent three work incomplete to fill requirements in new weeks learning the basics of soldiering as signal companies and battalions. These units well as defense against chemical attack, arti- continued training while in their overseas cles of war, and basic signal communication. assignments. The Pigeon Breeding and Train- In July 1942, the Midwestern Signal Corps ing Center moved from Fort Monmouth, School opened its doors with a capacity of New Jersey, to Camp Crowder in October 6,000 students, and the following month the 1942, though it returned to Monmouth at corps’ first unit training center opened. The the end of World War II.

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Camp Crowder was closed as a basic train- Origins ing site (and prisoner of war camp for Ger- Early European signaling in Canada origi- mans and Italians) in 1946. It remained active nated from the eighteenth-century efforts of as soldiers were mustered out of the service. competing companies and colonizers of the In 1947, 29,000 acres were sold for agricultural British and French. Where possible in the use, though the Missouri National Guard sparsely populated colonies, methods ap - retained about 4,000 acres for training. During proximated those used in Britain and Europe the Korean conflict, the camp saw a small at the same time. By 1705, St. Johns, New- bump in activity, but Missouri already had foundland, used cannon fire and signal flags Fort Leonard Wood and no need was seen for to denote any trouble approaching by sea. By two active Army training facilities in the same the end of the century, Halifax was using an state. Crowder’s mission was changed again extensive system of flags, pennants, and large in 1953 when it became a branch of the disci- colored balls (supplemented with use of its plinary barracks until 1958. The Air Force lighthouse at night). Several of the signaling took over a portion of the camp in 1956 to masts were located in the city’s citadel, which manufacture rocket engines. was on high ground overlooking the British Most of Camp Crowder was closed in naval port. These semaphore telegraph sys- 1958 and declared surplus four years later. tems were soon extended to Nova Scotia and The land reverted to agricultural use, and the shore of New Brunswick, and plans were Crowder College was formed in 1963, which laid to extend the system to Quebec, Mon- continues to use some of the buildings con- treal, and farther west. structed for the military in the early 1940s. With the War of 1812 and American threats With the growth of the war on terror, how- to Canada, the telegraph system was renewed ever, the training facility has seen a revival and fully staffed. Inland sites made more use for the state’s National Guard units. of direction poles and signal fires. The system Danny Johnson around Quebec, Montreal, and Kingston, Ontario, was maintained after the war, but See also Army Signal Corps; Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Pigeons; War on Terrorism; most of it was abandoned by the late 1820s World War II due to the cost of continued operation in the face of no obvious military threat. Source Commercial electric telegraphy arrived in GlobalSecurity.org. “Camp Crowder.” [Online Halifax by the late 1850s, and the city kept in information; retrieved January 2007.] http:// touch with Montreal to the west and Boston www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ camp-crowder.htm. to the south. But revived tension with the United States in the 1860s led the military to adopt the technology to supplement (not replace) its semaphore systems. On Canada’s Canada confederation in 1867, British military forces began to pull out, leaving their facilities for Following extensive colonial semaphore and Canadian forces. By the 1880s, telephone telegraph development, Canada’s military links were in use within major military posts communications efforts operated as separate and to connect nearby outliers. service-defined functions. These were In 1903 the Canadian Signalling Corps merged in 1968. was created largely due to the efforts of Cap-

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tain Bruce Carruthers, now considered the required a 60-yard aerial standing 12 feet father of Canadian army signals. A school of high to reach an effective range of 4,000 signaling was established at Petawawa in yards. As the aerial attracted enemy artillery 1912, with its own instructional staff. Signal fire, it was an unpopular addition to any companies were provided for divisions and location. signal troops for mounted brigades along By July 1917, wireless communication with a signaling staff for instruction. Line between corps and divisions was common. telegraphy and wireless remained in the Power buzzers provided useful communica- hands of the engineers. In line with other tions in the trenches. Ranges of up to 3,000 British Empire signal services, the Canadians yards between stations were achieved. Lis- used British equipment to maintain a conti- tening sets or amplifiers became available nuity of quality communication throughout in February 1916 for eavesdropping on British and Dominion armies. enemy telephone conversations monitoring Allied telephone security. A major break- Army Signals through in signals security came with adop- A Canadian divisional signal company was tion of the Fullerphone in 1917. mobilized on 20 August 1914 from a nucleus Only on 1 April 1919 did signals fully sep- of permanent force signal personnel. During arate from the engineers as the Canadian World War I, six signal companies were Signalling Instructional Staff became a unit raised for Canadian divisions in addition to of the permanent force. On 15 December other signal units. In the early stages of fight- 1920, the Canadian Permanent Signal Corps ing, pigeons were used, and the pigeon ser- was authorized. King George V honored the vice became a special branch of signals. corps on 15 June 1921, when it became the Signaling by lamp was used at night, and the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. Royal Hucks and Aldis signaling lamps were Canadian Engineers Defence and Electric replaced by the superior Lucas lamp in 1916. Light detachments continued to provide The Lucas lamp was lighter, was more communications at the coastal defenses at mobile, and had a narrower beam of light. It Halifax and elsewhere. In the early1920s sig- was at this time that the telephone came into nal training was centralized at a depot its own as the main means of communica- opened at Camp Borden, Ontario. The Per- tions at the front. manent Force Signal Corps supervised the The Canadian Corps Wireless Section was signal training program of the nonperma- formed in 1916 and operated large spark- nent active militia. In 1937, the Corps School gap sets. Improved wireless equipment grad- of Signals moved to Vimy Barracks at ually replaced the earlier spark-gap wireless Kingston, Ontario. sets. Continuous wave, made possible by the In 1923, the corps provided radio stations invention of the vacuum tube, rapidly super- for the Yukon mining communities of Mayo seded them. Notable was the trench set, a 50- Landing and Dawson City, heralding the watt, spark-gap, low-frequency wireless beginning of the Northwest Territories and using a 50-foot antenna with a 3-foot aerial. Yukon Radio System. The network eventu- The Wilson wireless set, if used in conjunc- ally grew to twenty-eight stations as it tion with trench sets, could double the range became a vital link in the development of of the wireless net. One drawback of early Canada’s northern frontier, providing reli- wireless was its visibility—the Wilson set able communications for mining companies,

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aircraft, trading posts, and prospectors. Weather information was another important task provided by the network. Regular weather reports from these systems formed the basis for national forecasts from the Dominion Observatory. (In 1957, the corps began turning over all of these stations to the federal Department of Transport and by 1965 had relinquished its responsibilities.) During World War II, the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals provided five divisional, two corps, and many smaller signals units including interception sections. Canadian signalers served many theaters, including northwest Europe, Sicily and Italy, and Hong Kong, and provided an intercept unit in northern Australia. The Canadian Signals Research and Development Establishment was created at Ottawa. An infantry brigade signal squadron and an artillery signal troop served in the 1950– 1953 Korean conflict. The corps also provided a brigade signal squadron for Canadian A Canadian signaler, seen with a pile of artillery shells, North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in receives orders in France in 1944. Canadian signals Germany from the early 1950s until it was personnel served with distinction in both world wars. withdrawn in 1994. Canadian signals oper- (Corel) ated the army component of the National Defence Communications System, a country- wide teletype network. Throughout the last (RCAF). Most of these responsibilities were half of the twentieth century the corps has handed over to the RCAF by 1934. served in many United Nations peacekeeping The Royal Canadian Air Force Signals operations including in Indochina, Korea, the Branch, later to evolve into the Telecommu- Congo, Middle East, and Cyprus. nications Branch, was formed in 1935. This supported operations of the RCAF in Air Force Signals Canada and overseas during World War II. When airmail postage was introduced in RCAF Station Clinton trained more than Canada during 1927, the Royal Canadian 6,000 radar personnel for service in Canada’s Corps of Signals was given responsibility coastal defense, the United Kingdom’s home for a nationwide system of radio beacons, radar chain, and many other areas of Allied required to guide the mail planes. The corps operations. also supplied communications for the first transatlantic airmail from a radio station at Navy Signals Red Bay, Labrador, to mail ships at sea and The Royal Canadian Navy operated the Sup- aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force plementary Radio System with some 800

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sailors who worked in high-frequency radio mand. The navy and air force schools also direction finding and communications re - closed after integration. From that point on, search, primarily in the north. “Supplemen- training was conducted at the Canadian tary” was a euphemism for interception of Forces School of Communications and Elec- enemy signals. The headquarters and school tronics in Kingston, Ontario. were at HMCS Gloucester, Ottawa, which Cliff Lord also became the center for communications See also Aldis Lamp; Fullerphone; Pigeons; research in 1947. The Communications Spe- United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; cial Branch was created to perform the inter- World War I; World War II ception work, though its title varied. A number of naval radio stations (NRSs) were Sources activated including HMCS Churchill in 1948, Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. “Canada.” In The Royal Corps of Signals: Unit and NRS Gander in 1949. Later stations Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and its included HMCS Coverdale, HMCS Inuvik, Antecedents. Solihall, UK: Helion. and naval radio stations in Aklavik, Masset, Moir, John S. 1962. History of the Royal Canadian Frobisher Bay, Chimo, and Bermuda. Corps of Signals: 1903–1961. Ottawa: Corps Committee, Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. Merger Morrison, James. H. 1982. Wave to Whisper: The Canadian Forces Reorganisation Act of British Military Communications in Halifax 1968 brought the signal organizations of the and the Empire, 1780–1880. Ottawa: Parks army, navy, and air force together. The new Canada. Communications and Electronics Branch Proc, Jerry. 2005. “Radio Communications and became responsible for all communications Signals Intelligence in the RCN.” [Online information; retrieved August 2005.] http:// and electronics matters in the Canadian jproc.ca/rrp/index.html. Forces. Its components included the Royal Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. “Northwest Canadian Corps of Signals, the Royal Cana- Territories and Yukon Radio System.” dian Air Force Telecommunications Branch, [Online information; retrieved November the Royal Canadian Navy Communications 2004.] http://www.nwtandy.rcsigs.ca/ index.htm. Research Branch, and some elements of the Weir, A. Norman. 1986. Special Wireless Edition Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical 446. Ottawa: Canadian Forces Communica- Engineers. In theory these disparate groups tions and Electronics Newsletter. became one, with the same badge and uni- form. At first all three services continued to operate their own trans-Canadian message networks, and the air force also retained a Canada: Communications Security ground-to-air communication system. Establishment (CSE) Integration brought them all under the Canadian Forces Communication System, The Communications Security Establishment renamed the Canadian Forces Communica- (CSE) is Canada’s national signals intelligence tions Command in 1970. In the mid-1990s, (SIGINT) organization. A civilian agency of communications became a direct responsibil- the Department of National De fence, CSE ity of National Defence Headquarters, processes SIGINT and disseminates reports to Defence Information Services Organization Canadian and allied (British, U.S., Australian, with the closure of Communications Com- and New Zealand) agencies.

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CSE began on 3 September 1946 as the Establishment Commissioner, which issues Communications Branch of the National occasional public and many more frequent Research Council. It was the direct descen- classified reports. dant of Canada’s wartime military and civil- Christopher H. Sterling ian SIGINT processing operations, which See also Canada; Code Breaking; Government also had worked in close cooperation with its Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); American and British counterparts. The next National Security Agency (NSA); Signals year, the branch took on the additional Intelligence (SIGINT) responsibility of communications and elec- tronic security (prior to this Canadian gov- Sources ernment encryption systems and keys had Bryden, John. 1993. Best-Kept Secret: Canadian Secret Intelligence in the Second World War. been provided by Britain). On 1 April 1975, Toronto: Lester Publishing. the operation was transferred to the Depart- Communications Security Establishment. 2002. ment of National Defence and took its pre- “Canada’s Signals Intelligence Agency.” sent name. At the time of its transfer, CSE [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] had nearly 600 personnel. It expanded by http://www.tscm.com/cse.html. 50 percent by the mid-1990s. Communications Security Establishment. 2002. “Chronology of Canada’s Postwar SIGINT Actual collection of SIGINT is conducted Activities.” [Online information; retrieved by the Canadian Forces Supplementary April 2006.] http://www.tscm.com/ Radio System (SRS), which operates under csechron.html. the direction of CSE. Small-scale SIGINT col- Communications Security Establishment. 2006. lection for the British Royal Navy began in “Welcome to the Communications Security Establishment.” [Online information; 1925, but collection for Canadian processing retrieved April 2006.] http://www.cse-cst began during World War II. All three services .gc.ca/index-e.html. operated SIGINT collection facilities during the war, and continued to do so after 1945. The unified collection organization, SRS, was created in 1966 as part of the unification of Chappe, Claude (1763–1805) the Canadian Armed Forces. During the Cold War, the primary target of Developer of a widely used mechanical or CSE and SRS was the Soviet Union, and the optical semaphore system, Claude Chappe SRS intercept stations were sited accordingly, lived long enough only to see its original suc- often in far northern parts of Canada to bet- cess, though his invention was used for more ter “read” Soviet communications. Over the than four decades in France and elsewhere in past fifteen years, some monitoring sites Europe. Chappe was born on Christmas Day have been converted to operation by remote of 1763 in Brûlon, France, one of five brothers, control, while new ones have opened to several of whom were raised to become exploit changing targets of opportunity priests. Chappe also had an interest in science including communication satellites in the from an early age and by 1790 was working Western Hemisphere. on various mechanical means of rapid dis- Since 1996 when Canadian security law tance communication, which he dubbed the was substantially revised, CSE operations télégraphe. He first demonstrated a model of have been monitored and reported by the his optical system in 1791 between two towns Office of the Communications Security a dozen miles apart.

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Chappe’s perfected system used two ver- Mounted on carts with hand-operated sig- tical 30-foot wooden poles or masts, each naling arms, the Chappe field telegraphs with a 15-foot transverse arm, or “regulator,” were used as late as the Crimean War (1853– to which were attached two articulated arms, 1865). Chappe’s system remained in use for or “indicators.” Worked by a system of decades, expanding to provide some 3,000 weights and two levers, the movable arms miles of telegraph “line” serviced by more could be shifted into nearly 200 positions to than 530 signaling stations serving nearly indicate different words, phrases, or (most thirty of Europe’s largest cities. Night oper- likely) numbers in a table of signals. This ations with lanterns were attempted, but code was revised several times. Half of the these did not work. Though Chappe had coded signals were used for actual messages proposed the system be extended to com- while the other half were used to regulate mercial use, the telegraph, built and retained and police the process of communicating up by the French government as a monopoly, and down the line (start of messages, was generally restricted to military or diplo- weather difficulties, etc.). matic messages until the 1820s. The system Chappe needed government help to test was widely copied by other countries until his system over a longer distance. His replaced by electric telegraphy after 1844. brother Ignace (1760–1829), newly elected to Christopher H. Sterling the revolutionary Legislative Assembly, See also France: Army; Napoleonic Wars (1795– helped gain the needed funding. Thus the 1815); Semaphore (Mechanical Telegraphs) French government funded the construction of fifteen telegraph stations (ranging from Sources wooden houses to stone towers) on hilltops Chappe, Ignace V. J. 1840. Histoire de la Telegra- from Paris north to Lille, each about 10 to 20 phie. AuMans, France: Ch. Richelet. miles apart and equipped with telescopes, Holtzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson. 1995. The Early History of Data Networks. Los covering an overall distance of about 120 Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society miles. It was placed into service in mid-1794 Press. and rapidly showed its ability to carry mes- Koenig, Duane. 1944. “Telegraphs and sages far faster than any means of transport. Telegrams in Revolutionary France.” The Soon other lines were developed, including Scientific Monthly LIX (December): 431–437. east to Strasbourg (1798) and west to Brest Mallinson, Howard. 2005. Send it by Semaphore: The Old Telegraphs During the Wars with and the English Channel. Amsterdam, France. Ramsbury, UK: Crowood Press. Milan, and Venice (which could get a signal Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. “France.” In The Old from Paris in about six hours) were all Telegraphs, 120–130. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & reached by 1810. Littlefield. Many claimed at least partial credit for the Chappe system, and hounded by such claimants, Chappe committed suicide in Cher Ami and the Paris on 23 January 1805. His brothers and “Lost Battalion” others in the family remained active in man- aging the telegraph lines for years to follow. Among the most famous of the 600 carrier Four years earlier brother Abraham Chappe pigeons donated by British pigeon fanciers developed a field telegraph system and a that served American forces on the Western dozen were made for Napoleon’s army. Front in late 1918 was Cher Ami (“dear

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friend”). He flew at least a dozen message The bird’s role was soon filling stories in missions, most importantly one to assist the newspapers and magazines. Cher Ami died famous “Lost Battalion.” of his multiple war wounds at Fort Mon- On 3 October 1918 more than 500 men of the mouth, New Jersey, on 13 June 1919—less U.S. Army’s 77th Infantry Division became than a year after he had completed his ser- trapped behind German lines during the Bat- vice to the U.S. Army Signal Corps. A few tle of the Meuse-Argonne. By the second day years later a fifteen-stanza poem was written only 200 men were still unwounded. Their in the bird’s honor. Visitors to the National commanding officer, Major Charles S. Whit- Museum of American History in Washing- tlesey, sent out three pigeons (their radios ton DC can see Cher Ami, preserved for his- had been destroyed) to tell American forces tory alongside the French medal that the where his unit was, but they appear to have bird earned. been shot down. When American artillery Christopher H. Sterling shells began to fall among the surrounded See also Pigeons U.S. troops, Whittlesey wrote a quick note and placed it in the message canister on the Sources left leg of his last pigeon, Cher Ami. It said, Fairfield County Pigeon Fanciers Association. “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our “Pigeons During the Two World Wars.” own artillery is dropping a barrage directly [Online information; retrieved September 2005.] http://www.pigeonclubsusa on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it.” As Cher .com/faircount_facts_info_world_war.htm. Ami began to fly back home to the main Farrington, Harry Web. 1926. “Cher Ami.” American line, the Germans opened fire. [Online poem; retrieved September 2005.] Cher Ami managed to climb higher, beyond http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall03/ the range of enemy guns, and flew 25 miles Working/Bird.html. in only 25 minutes to deliver his message. The shelling was halted and more than 200 American lives were saved. Chicksands But Cher Ami had been hit—when he reached his coop, he was lying on his back, Chicksands was the primary center of the covered in blood. He had been blinded in British Y Service (radio detecting and listen- one eye, and a bullet had hit his breastbone, ing) operations, which during World War II making a hole the size of a quarter. Hanging supported the code-breaking functions of by just a few tendons was the pigeon’s Bletchley Park. Since 1997 it has housed the almost severed leg with the canister holding British army’s Intelligence Corps and a the all-important message. Though dedi- related museum. cated medics saved Cher Ami’s life, they The history of Chicksands is a long one, could not save his leg. The men of the divi- dating back before the Norman Conquest of sion took care of the little bird that had saved 1066. Located just southwest of the town of 200 of their friends, and even carved a small Bedford in central England, for four centuries wooden leg for him. When Cher Ami was Chicksands Priory was a Gilbertine mon- well enough to travel, the one-legged hero astery serving the needs of resident monks (and forty other message-carrying pigeons) and nuns (one of nine such locations in the was put on a ship back to the United States. country). After the dissolution of the monas-

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teries in 1538 by Henry VIII, Chicksands RAF left the base in 1961, and considerable became the home of the Osborn family for 400 construction of new and expanded buildings years. The priory and surrounding grounds soon followed as the U.S. Air Force were sold to the Air Ministry in 1936, for use expanded operations. The base continued to as a radio signals station because of its rela- be operated by the U.S. Air Force until 30 tively high ground location. September 1995, when the combination of Five 240-foot radio antennas (one remains modern technology and the lessening of today) and many additional one-story build- East-West tensions made the function redun- ings (dubbed blocks) were constructed in dant. A large circular radio antenna con- 1940–1941. Radio listening activities began in structed in the 1960s and covering some 35 1940 with three squadrons of Women’s Aux- acres (known locally as the “Elephant Cage”) iliary Air Force and Royal Air Force (RAF) was dismantled during 1996. personnel operating twenty-four hours a After budget and other considerations, in day, recording Luftwaffe Enigma machine- 1997 the largely deserted RAF Chicksands coded messages for relay to and decoding by became the home of the Ministry of Defence Bletchley Park. In early 1941, navy and RAF Intelligence and Security Centre and a operators helped to locate the German bat- museum of defense intelligence. The priory tleship Bismark by her radio signals. For the serves as the home of the British Army Intel- duration of the war, Y operators intercepted ligence Corps. All training for the intelli- Enigma’s five-letter code group radio mes- gence corps and for RAF intelligence officers sages, which were carefully copied down in and analysts is carried out at Chicksands. pencil on special forms for transmission to Christopher H. Sterling Bletchley. Few had much idea of the value of See also Bletchley Park; Code Breaking; what they were doing, but all struggled with Enigma; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); weak signals and external noise while trying Ultra; Y Service to extract the all-important messages. Soon operators could recognize individual Ger- Sources man transmitters by their mode of transmis- Grayson, William C. 1999. Chicksands: A Millen- nium of History. 3rd ed. Crofton, MD: sion. Shefford Press. An area just a few hundred feet west of the Intelligence Corps. “Chicksands.” [Online priory and listening blocks served as an RAF information; retrieved August 2005.] radio transmission site, operating as the hub http://www.army.mod.uk/intelligence of a high frequency radio network. The site corps/chicksands.htm. was also used for clandestine radio commu- nications to European resistance groups. With the end of World War II, RAF Chick- China, People’s Republic of sands reverted to caretaker status for five years. In 1950 the priory became a primary China originated paper, printing, gunpowder, U.S. Air Force communications security base, and rocketry, to name but four technologies continuing its role as a radio intercept station useful in military communication. For much (for voice, code, and later radioteletype and of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, facsimile services), now directed against the China was a technically backward region, Soviet Union and states allied with it. The exploited by numerous other powers. By the

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early twenty-first century, the People’s military units receiving the most modern Republic of China had the world’s largest components. China has an extensive net- standing military and its defense spending work of hardened, underground shelters was second only to the United States. Mod- and command-and-control facilities. Fear of ern military communications are increas- possible war with the former Soviet Union in ingly central to the operation of Chinese the 1960s and 1970s prompted China to con- forces. struct extensive national command posts Modern signal troops first appeared in the and associated communications while in- early 1920s with the National Revolutionary creasing the pace of modernization. Over Forces in south China. Special signal courses the past two decades, the country has largely were held in Whampoa Military Academy in completed a shift from reliance on analog to 1925, and signal engineers were established more secure digital military communication the next year under the National Revolution links. Army. In 1928, the Signal Corps became China’s military communications network semi-independent from the engineers and is separate from the civil telecommuni- joined with transport troops to become a cations network, although the two would new branch of the Nationalist Army, the be linked in any crisis. China’s military Transport and Signal Branch. The Signals national-level command-and-control com- Technical School was established early in munications are carried over multiple trans- 1928 (and soon received some technical mission systems in order to create a system assistance from Germany), and by the fall, a that is survivable, secure, flexible, mobile, signal regiment was formed at army head- and less vulnerable to exploitation, destruc- quarters with thirty-seven radio stations tion, or electronic attack. China’s communi- under its control. Radio was tactically cations networks are capable of supporting employed during 1929 in the northern People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military provinces. The Signal Regiment became two operations within China’s borders; while regiments, and in 1931, a battalion was they might be damaged, they are unlikely to formed. The Signal Corps was formally be completely destroyed. established in 1934. Communication and information modern- The Signal Corps expanded rapidly. In ization and automation has been a top Chi- January 1938, the Signal Command was nese priority since at least 1979. This effort established under the Ministry of Military has produced a command automation data Operations. Many new regiments and sub- network capable of rapidly passing opera- units were raised. The Directorate of Signals tional orders down the chain of command was established in March 1939. China suf- and moving information to national- and fered hugely in its 1931–1945 war with theater-level decision makers. However, Japan, in part due to the ongoing strife China’s communications infrastructure, between the Communists and the National- including the command automation data ist government. After four years (1945–1949) network portions, appears not yet capable of of civil war, the People’s Republic of China controlling or directing military forces in a was founded in October 1949. sophisticated, Western-style joint operating Chinese electronic warfare equipment cur- environment. The command automation rently includes a combination of 1950s to data network can support domestic opera- 1980s technologies, with only a few select tions and conventional attack options along

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China’s borders. China still lags behind hastened improvements. China currently Western standards for controlling complex focuses on understanding information war- joint operations and lacks the robust archi- fare as a military threat, developing effective tecture required to meet the demands of the countermeasures, and studying offensive modern battlefield. employment of information warfare against Microwave communications equipment is foreign economic, logistics, and command, present at PLA installations. Cellular tele- control, communications, and computer phone service has only recently become information (C4I) systems. Driven by the per- another element of PLA military communi- ception that China’s information systems are cations, and China has shown interest in vulnerable, the highest priority has been establishing dedicated military cellular sys- assigned to defensive programs and indige- tems for PLA use. The explosive growth of nous information technology development. cellular communications in the civilian sec- Some technologies could provide enhanced tor probably aids military adoption of cellu- defensive or offensive capabilities against for- lar technology for PLA operations. eign military and civilian infor mation infra- Chinese networks are composed largely of structure systems. Computer anti virus commercial, off-the-shelf technology. Europe, solutions, network security, and advanced Japan, and Israel, among others, compete data communications technologies are a few to sell telecommunications technology, examples. Over the last few years, the Com- as well as related hardware and software, munication Command Academy in Wuhan to China. China is procuring state-of-the- has emerged as one of the major PLA centers art technology to improve its intercept, in information warfare research. direction-finding, and jamming capabili- China appears interested in researching ties. In addition to providing extended methods to insert computer viruses into for- imagery reconnaissance and surveillance eign networks as part of its overall informa- and electronic intelligence collection, China’s tion strategy. China reportedly has adequate unmanned aerial vehicle programs probably hardware and software tools and possesses will provide platforms for improved radio a strong and growing understanding of the and radar jammers. Existing earth stations technologies involved. However, China’s can be modified to interfere with satellite strategic use of advanced information tech- communications. PLA also is developing an nologies in the short to mid-term likely will electronic countermeasures (ECM) doctrine lack depth and sophistication; however, as it and has performed structured training in an develops more expertise in defending its ECM environment. Chinese military com- own networks against enemy attack, it is munication satellites entered service in the likely to step up attempts to penetrate for- early 2000s. eign information systems. China increasingly sees information war- Open source articles claim that PLA has fare as a strategic weapon outside traditional incorporated information warfare–related operational boundaries. China’s capacities scenarios into its operational exercises. include those in combat secrecy, military Efforts reportedly have focused on increas- deception, psychological warfare, electronic ing PLA’s proficiency in defensive measures, warfare, and physical destruction of enemy especially against computer viruses. This capacities. The country’s expanding manu- anti-access strategy is centered on targeting facture of sophisticated electronic devices has operational centers of gravity, including C4I

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centers, airbases, and aircraft carrier battle trol the battery’s guns. Complicating the need, groups located around the periphery of the new guns could fire at targets unseen by China. their gunners, as coastal mortars always did. Christopher H. Sterling and Cliff Lord Target location required observers distant See also Electronic Countermeasures/ from the guns to communicate their observa- Electronic Warfare (ECM/EW); Information tions rapidly to plotting rooms. These mes- Revolution in Military Affairs (IRMA); sages were converted into predicted target Jamming; Microwave; Mobile positions and then into specific aiming data Communications and transmitted to the guns. Submarine Sources mines (a key element of coast defense) had Federation of American Scientists. 2000. essentially the same fire control require- “Command and Control.” [Online informa- ments as gun batteries. A growing number of tion; retrieved June 2006.] http://www.fas searchlights also had to be directed by offi- .org/nuke/guide/china/c3i/index.html. cers not located near them, while the tactical U.S. Department of Defense. 2000. Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s command structure had to direct the fire of Republic of China. [Online report; retrieved subordinate elements. As two base end sta- November 2004.] http://www.defenselink tions for each coastal battery had to take .mil/news/Jun2000/china06222000.htm. observations of the same target simultane- U.S. Department of Defense. 2003. Annual ously, and since the plotting rooms calcu- Report on the Military Power of the People’s lated the firing data for a specific firing Republic of China. [Online report; retrieved March 2006.] http://www.globalsecurity instant, time-interval apparatus was neces- .org/military/library/report/2003/20030730 sary to simultaneously operate bells at the chinaex.pdf. observing stations, plotting rooms, and guns. Improved tactical, or fire control (FC), communication was clearly necessary. The Coast Defense question was how to tie all these elements together in an effective system of communi- American coast defense communications cations. Telegraphy was slow and required technology was unique and grew in com- expensive specialists. The telephone was plexity from 1890 through 1945. In the nine- promising but in the late nineteenth century teenth century, need for and means of coast was still too inefficient to be relied upon, defense communication were minimal as especially during the noise of battle. One ballistic calculations were done at the guns, partial solution was the speaking tube. Con- which were so concentrated that officers crete coastal batteries were crisscrossed with could personally direct their fire. Any further metal speaking tubes, connecting battery communication used voice, runners, flags, or commanders, plotting rooms, ammunition rockets. magazines, and the guns. Despite some In the 1890s, however, introduction of new interference from rumbling ammunition weapons with greatly increased range de - carts, these tubes were an effective means of manded improved communication to operate communication within batteries through at their full potential. In addition to normal World War I. post-telephone systems, coast artillery re - The more difficult problem of communica- quired communication to identify and locate tion with distant coastal stations led to the targets (especially moving warships) and con-

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development of the “telautograph.” A remark- Extensive networks of massive armored ably modern device introduced around 1904, cables, both terrestrial and submarine, con- it could transmit writing over wires and dupli- nected stations, batteries, and forts. These cate it at a distant receiver. Despite some initial FC telephones had neither dials nor switch- troubles with bringing it online for practical board operators as they were essentially use, a reliable system evolved. Although hardwired point to point, with operators expensive and complicated, it minimized mis- assigned to each instrument. Commanders’ communication while preserving a written stations contained numerous booths for tele- record. Though not installed at all harbor phone operators. Telephones came in several defenses, the telautograph was widely used in versions: battery commander’s sets, gun the early twentieth century, as was the “aero- telephones, wall sets, plotting-room sets, and scope,” a device for transmitting tide and desk instruments. These differed largely in meteorological data to the various plotting their containers and in the inclusion or omis- rooms. sion of ringing apparatus and bells. The tele- No sooner had the installation of these phones did not include the talking set—a modern devices begun, however, than the headset with speaking tube was the most efforts of the U.S. Army Signal Corps to common type—but handsets and standard develop telephones suitable for FC com - commercial “candlestick” phones were also munication began to bear fruit. The first used. The nerve center of the system was generation, introduced around 1905, were the FC switchboard room, which contained “composite” phones, powered by either local not only the connections between telephones dry-cell batteries or a common battery power and the time-interval apparatus but also the supply. Inside models were housed in motor generators that supplied the 30 volts wooden cases, while outdoor telephones necessary to operate the entire system. were mounted in heavy iron boxes; tele- Within mortar batteries, zone signal sys- phone booths soon became common in gun tems with lights and bells in the powder and mortar emplacements. Within less than magazines indicated the zone (size) charges a decade, use of local battery power had needed for subsequent shots. Mechanical been eliminated in favor of “common bat- data transmission systems, an integral part tery” telephones, which operated more of batteries constructed before and immedi- efficiently on the common power supply. ately after World War I, displayed plotting Experience in tropical territory soon resulted room firing data at the guns. in replacement of wooden with metal cases Between the wars, as need arose for to better protect against dampness and communicating with mobile tractor-drawn insects. Development of efficient telephone and railway artillery, standard army por - communications doomed the much more table field phones were used. After consider- expensive and complicated telautograph able effort, the Signal Corps developed a and aeroscope, and both were phased out portable time-interval system for mobile bat- after 1910. teries not connected to a switchboard room. Fully developed before World War I, this Acknowledging that FC telephones had not FC system as installed in most harbor kept pace with technical advancements, the defenses and remained the basis for coast Signal Corps developed a new telephone by artillery communication until World War II. the eve of World War II, and during that war

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these largely replaced the variety of older FC War Department. 1900–1918. “Report of the telephones. Interwar experiments aimed at Chief Signal Officer.” In Annual Report of the increasing the versatility of FC systems Secretary of War. Washington, DC: Govern- ment Printing Office. resulted in new switchboards that improved interconnections, allowing stations to ob - serve for more than one gun battery. Code, Codebook Radio steadily grew in importance. Used early in the twentieth century primarily in Some modes of transmitting messages over place of signal flags and lights for communi- a distance make use of lights (e.g., “one if by cating with ships, by World War II radio had land, and two if by sea”), flags or other become another important link, providing visual signals, or audible signs (e.g., gunfire, communication with remote stations and bugles, whistles) that are clearly understood tying coastal defenses together, though the by both sender and receiver. Such signals telephone remained the primary means of are usually used more for efficiency than data transmission. Shortly after World War secrecy, but they also form a kind of code. II, however, coast defense batteries and their More complex codes and codebooks have accompanying communications systems been used for many years both to save mes- were declared obsolete and all were dis- sage transmission time and cost and to posed of. ensure confidentiality. Bolling W. Smith A code is a communication system in See also Atlantic Wall; Maginot Line which a word, number, letter, symbol, or phrase is substituted for (or represents) plain Sources text words or phrases. It differs from a Coast Artillery School. 1936, 1940. Signal cipher, which substitutes or transposes one Communication: Coast Artillery. Army Extension Courses, Special Text No. 39. letter (or a pair) for another. Codes are more Prepared under the direction of the Chief of widely used and are often superenciphered Coast Artillery. Fort Monroe, VA: Coast with added numbers or letters to make it Artillery School. harder for code breakers to discern patterns. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. 1904. General Such a code is often transmitted in long lists Instructions for Fire Control Installations of the of four- or five-digit number groups. A code United States Signal Corps in Force April 30, 1904: Memorandum No. 3. Washington, DC: breaker must seek the plain code “behind” Government Printing Office. the superenciphered material. There are lit- Office of the Chief Signal Officer. 1914. Installa- erally hundreds of types of codes, though tion and Maintenance of Fire Control Systems most are now generated (and broken) with at Seacoast Fortifications: Manual No. 8. the use of computers. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Confidentiality of codes used by military Scriven, George P. 1908. “The Signal Corps and forces is obviously vital. Limited access to the Coast Defense; The Coast Patrol; The codes and constant monitoring of their use Relation of the Signal Corps to the Coast as well as code changes over time help to Artillery.” In The Transmission of Military impede code-breaking activity. But virtually Information. Governors Island, NY: Journal of no code is unbreakable, save the “one-time the Military Service Institution of the United States. pad” method where a specific code combina- tion is used only once and then discarded.

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In its most basic form, any codebook is security. The “river” and “lake” series of designed to encode or decode messages. It is Army codes, beginning with “Potomac” in usually in the form of a printed volume with 1918, for example, were two-part codes used columns of alphabetically arranged words at the battalion level and up. The “Huron” or phrases and their brief code letter or word lake code of late 1918 was designed for use representation. During the electric telegraph with telephone communication to allow era (used from the mid-nineteenth to the encoding of entire telephone exchanges. It early twentieth century), these large com- also included a two-letter brief “emergency mercially issued volumes were designed code” for use on the front lines. A radio code more to save money (by reducing the number was also developed that year. These code- of words, letters, or numbers transmitted) books were all created by the very small rather than ensure secrecy of transmission. (eight people) Code Compilation Section of Some were trade specific, and others were the Signal Corps that was formed in 1917. sold to the public. Hundreds were pub- A severe drawback to any military code- lished—there are more than a thousand of book is the danger of capture (as happened on them in the Library of Congress. numerous occasions in both world wars), and Codebooks are of two general types. thus of fatally opening the relevant code to One-part codes have both the words and prying eyes. They were usually printed in phrases and their equivalent codes listed in very limited numbers and guarded closely. alphabetical or numerical sequence, requir- Still, distribution of multiple copies over great ing only a single publication for both encod- distances and to multiple locations was a ing and decoding. The eighty-eight-page highly risky activity. Codebooks used by naval 1871 Chief Signal Officer’s Code, used by forces were often printed with ink that would both the U.S. Army and State Department, run if wet so they could be thrown overboard was of this type. It offered alternate code in weighted bags to prevent capture. words for common words or terms, thus Christopher H. Sterling reducing repetition (which is often used to See also Ardois Light; Code Breaking; help break into codes). So were far more Communications Security (COMSEC); complex (upward of 1,500 pages) “color” Coston Signals; Fire/Flame/Torch; Flags; codes of the State Department that followed Heliograph and Mirrors; Lights and at regular intervals. The American Trench Beacons; Morse Code; Music Signals; Night Signals; Semaphore (Mechanical Telegraphs); Code and Front-Line Code used in World Smoke War I were also one-part codes, but simpli- fied for portability. The former could encode Sources words using either numbers or a short let- Barker, Wayne G., ed. 1978. The History of Codes tered code word. and Ciphers in the United States Prior to Two-part codebooks, on the other hand, World War I. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. applied coded terms (either numbers or let- Friedman, William F. 1928. Report on the History ters) in a random sequence, thus requiring a of the Use of Codes and Code Language, the second list or book with the codes shown in International Telegraph Regulations Pertaining alphabetical or numerical order. This com- Thereto, and the Bearing of this History on the plexity adds to the time and cost of making Cortina Report. Washington, DC: Government a code, but can greatly increase message Printing Office.

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Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The Story of has often proven decisive to the outcome of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan. a battle or campaign. Singh, Simon. 1999. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy is essential to success in such Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. endeavors, and among the best-kept secrets Weber, Ralph E. 2002. Masked Dispatches: of World War II (and in some cases for Cryptograms and Cryptography in American decades longer) was the success of the Allies History, 1775–1900. Fort Meade, MD: in breaking German, Japanese, and other National Security Agency, Center for Crypto- countries’ military and diplomatic codes. logic History. The growing complexity of the code- Wrixton, Fred B. 1998. Codes, Ciphers & Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communication. New breaking process has increasingly centered York: Black Dog & Leventhal. such activity on those government and mil- itary specialized agencies best able to sup- port the budget, equipment, and personnel Code Breaking needed. Development of the Internet has cre- ated a whole new subset of code-breaking Creation of codes and ciphers (sometimes activity in the fight against terrorism. spelled “cyphers”) naturally created the need Little coordination of code-breaking activ- to find ways to read protected signal content. ities took place in government or military Code breaking, more recently termed crypt- agencies for much of American history. The analysis, means to create the means to read (to Military Intelligence Division section (created “break”) the code or cipher communications in 1903) of the General Staff, often referred to of an opposing entity, whether a commercial as G-2, was at least nominally responsible company, military force, or nation. Other for most cryptographic activities of the mili- closely related terms include “decode,” “deci- tary for much of the twentieth century, pher,” and “decrypt,” though these each have though it was ill equipped to do so at the slightly different meanings. Author David inception of either world war. Parker Hitt’s Kahn calls code breaking the most important 1916 monograph summarized all that was kind of secret intelligence today. known by that time. Herbert Yardley’s The basic principles of code breaking as famous New York City operation (known well as many of its methods are ages old as the “Black Chamber”) focused Army and (some date back at least 4,000 years to Egypt- diplomatic code-breaking efforts from World ian hieroglyphs). Many methods were mech- War I until its closure in 1929. In the early anized during the early twentieth century 1930s, William F. Friedman began to build the and then substantially computerized and code-breaking team for the Army that would digitized in the past few decades. Not sur- perform so well in World War II. prisingly, code breaking in one form or The Army and Navy ran totally separate another has played an important part in mil- operations before and during that war: the itary campaigns since ancient times. The Army Signal Intelligence Service based at ability to determine details about the Arlington Hall, Virginia, and the Navy’s Op- makeup and strength of an opposing force 20-G at Nebraska Avenue in Washington DC. and its plans—especially if the enemy is Both maintained numerous overseas posts as unaware you have gained this information— well. These activities were merged in 1949 but their lackluster performance during the

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Korean War resulted in the formation of the Wrixton, Fred B. 1998. Codes, Ciphers & Other National Security Agency (NSA) in 1952. Cryptic and Clandestine Communication. New Two decades later the Central Security Ser- York: Black Dog & Leventhal. vice was established within NSA to central- ize Pentagon code-breaking activities across the services. Code Talkers Christopher H. Sterling Native Americans provided a unique means See also Arlington Hall; Atlantic, Battle of the of communication during both world wars, (1939–1945); Bletchley Park; Code, but especially in World War II’s Pacific island Codebook; Code Talkers; Communications Security (COMSEC); Driscoll, Agnes Meyer campaigns from 1942 to 1945. Drawn from (1889–1971); Electric Cipher Machine many tribes, chiefly the Navajo of the Amer- (ECM Mark II, “SIGABA”); Enigma; ican Southwest, these U.S. Marines were able Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); to use their own language to communicate Germany: Naval Intelligence (B-Dienst); military information by radio or telephone Government Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Magic; Mauborgne, links without fear that the Japanese could Joseph Oswald (1881–1971); Midway, Battle understand what was being said. of (3–6 June 1942); National Security Native American “code talkers” (then pri- Agency (NSA); Nebraska Avenue, marily Choctaw, though five other tribes also Washington DC; OP-20-G; Polish Code served as code talkers) were first employed Breaking; Room 40; Rowlett, Frank B. at the end of World War I on the Western (1908–1998); Signal Security Agency (SSA, 1943–1949); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Front. Germany had broken many American SIGSALY; Tannenberg, Battle of (1914); codes, and a new approach was needed Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982); quickly. More than a dozen Choctaw served Ultra; Y Service; Yardley, Herbert O. during the battle of the Meuse-Argonne in (1889–1958) October–November 1918. They translated Choctaw telephone messages into English Sources Hitt, Parker. 1916. Manual for the Solution of on several occasions in the final two weeks Military Ciphers. Washington, DC: Govern- of the war. ment Printing Office. Recalling this earlier use of the Choctaw, Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The Story of Philip Johnston, a missionary’s son who had Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan. grown up on a Navajo reservation and spoke Kippenhahn, Rudolf. 1999. Code Breaking: A the language, suggested a way to meet the History and Exploration. Woodstock, NY: Overlook. military’s 1942 need for “unbreakable” com- Newton, David E. 1997. Encyclopedia of Cryptol- munication. Johnston believed Navajo an- ogy. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. swered the requirement because it is an Singh, Simon. 1999. The Code Book: The Science of unwritten language of extreme complexity. Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention Cryptography. New York: Doubleday. Smith, Derek J. 2003. “Codes and Ciphers in dialects, make it unintelligible without History.” [Online information; retrieved extensive exposure and training. It has no October 2004.] http://www.smithsrisca alphabet or symbols and is spoken only on .demon.co.uk/crypto-ancient.html. the Navajo lands. Probably fewer than thirty non-Navajos could understand the language

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Two U.S. Marine Navajo “code talkers” signalmen use their native language to send a radio message during the fighting on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in 1943. The Japanese were never able to break signals sent in several different Native American languages. (Bettmann/Corbis)

at the outbreak of the war. With five Navajo, invaluable part of many Marine island inva- Johnston conducted a demonstration for sions, able to communicate far faster and Marine officers who agreed to try the idea. with greater security than many other means By mid-1942, a small group (“the first 29”) of transmitting coded messages. of Navajo underwent Marine training and Fourteen Comanche also served as code developed a dictionary of native terms to talkers with the Army’s Fourth Division in cover military needs. This was memorized Europe (their language also lacked a written (printed codebooks could not be taken into version at the time). Members of at least a combat) and included Navajo terms used to dozen other tribes served in a similar fash- indicate more than 400 military terms that ion, but have received comparatively less did not exist in the Navajo tongue. The attention. Because of the continuing value of Navajo were then deployed to the Pacific as the code talkers, little was revealed of what others joined the training process. All told, they had accomplished until decades after some 400 Navajo code talkers became an the war. A 2002 feature motion picture,

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Windtalkers, featured a highly fictional view Flag color patterns are chosen carefully of the Navajo role in World War II. and may include vertical and horizontal Christopher H. Sterling patterns of two to ten colors, crosses from See also U.S. Marine Corps; World War II the flag middle or flag corners, quartered squares, sixteen squares, four triangles, a Sources colored circle or square in the center, two McClain, Sally. 2002. Navajo Weapon: The Navajo colored squares in the center, or a small tri- Code Talkers. Tucson, AZ: Rio Nuevo Publishers. angle or square in the center of a pennant, Meadows, William C. 2002. The Comanche Code among others. Pennants often have slight Talkers of World War II. Austin: University of variations of flag design. To find examples of Texas Press. poorly chosen colors, shapes, or design one Paul, Doris A. 1973. The Navajo Code Talkers. merely need scan the many flaghoist systems Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance. proposed during the period from 1650 to about 1875. For decades, almost every admi- ral in every navy in the world had his own Color set of flags and codebook—and few could really accomplish the job their navy needed The use of one or more colors is often a critical done without them. But the multiplicity of part of military communications. For exam- systems contributed to confusion in their ple, waving a white flag (no color) is widely use and the eventual drive for standardiza- understood to indicate surrender. The main tion. consideration is to select colors that will be Colors have also been used with signaling readily apparent at some distance and that lights and rockets. Use of color signals sent carry a predetermined meaning. at predetermined intervals could signal The use of colors in signal flags is espe- fairly complex messages. The modern Very cially important when the flag is hanging pistol is a descendant of such rocket signals. limply without wind. To increase legibility, Very night signals using balls of red and most designs are chosen as if they were in green fire shot from a pistol first appeared black and white. Color is added to brighten in 1877, their arrangement having a pre- each flag, and thus make it more visible arranged code significance. Star shells of against the sky. Most signaling flags use only different colors, as well as rockets to carry one or two colors. Half a dozen have three tactical messages, were widely used in colors (most commonly red, white, and World War I. After 1917 signal rockets came blue). Several have four colors (yellow, blue, into more general use. Some made use of red, and black, for example). Modern flag colors to communicate Morse code, with red designs were improved over many years of indicating a dot and white or green a dash. application in the field and all multicolored Lights dropped from aircraft also used colors flags are assumed to be readable while flying to send signals. as well as while hanging during an absence David L. Woods of wind. Green is deemed a poorer color See also Aldis Lamp; Coston Signals; Flags; selection, and now most codes use it in only Flaghoist; Lights and Beacons; Night Signals; two designs. The most common colors are Semaphore (Mechanical Telegraphs); Signal yellow, red, and blue. Book; Signal Rockets

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Source The concept was first developed during Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical World War II (CICs were fitted into the Iowa- Communications Techniques. Orlando, FL: class battleships under construction, for Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press in Telecommunications, 1974). example, though the vessels were not origi- nally designed with such a facility). A CIC is usually an internal and protected (armored) space located near the bridge to allow for Combat Information Center (CIC) coordinated continuity of action while under attack. The CIC is always manned when a A combat information center (CIC, or “com- naval ship is at sea. Equipped with radar bat” for short), is the communications and scopes, wax plotter boards (or today, more electronics hub of any modern naval vessel. often their electronic equivalent), and exten- The multipurpose CIC developed from sive multimode communications links, the World War II radar plotting rooms (plots), CIC compartment is restricted space in both mounted in dark internal spaces on Ameri- size and access. can combat ships beginning with capital ves- During normal operations, the CIC sup- sels (battleships and aircraft carriers), and ports the commander on the bridge by track- eventually down to destroyers. ing and identifying surface and air contacts,

The combat information center (CIC) directs operations onboard the USS George Washington while underway in the Arabian Sea in 1998. (Department of Defense)

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coordinating with onshore command centers Sources via satellite communications links, and com- Storming Media. Combat Information Centers municating with other vessels via maritime search results. [Online search engine; retrieved September 2004.] http://www radio traffic. The CIC operates a variety of .stormingmedia.us/keywords/combat encrypted communications systems; surface _ information_centers.html. search and fire control radars; and an iden- U.S. Navy. 2005. “Division Officer Training.” tification, friend or foe system. The CIC per- [Online information; retrieved September sonnel also maintain the Shipboard 2005.] http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ navy/docs/swos/stu2/STU01.html. Command-and-Control System and the Joint Operational Tactical System, which provide real-time navigation and tactical information to personnel in the CIC on the bridge. CIC Combat Information Transport personnel also have a secure data link to System (CITS) onshore computer networks from which they can gather information about potential The Combat Information Transport System targets or threats. (CITS) is a multiyear U.S. Air Force program The CIC’s primary purpose, however, is to managing the life cycle of the service’s many assume tactical coordinated control of the communications and information systems. ship and its various weapons and defense The CITS program is designed to provide a systems during combat operations. When a high speed, broadband, digital information ship goes to battle stations (referred to as transport system responsible for integrating going to “general quarters”), the captain will existing data systems and providing the monitor events, direct the ship’s maneuver- capability to integrate all existing and ing, and order the appropriate use of planned voice, video, imagery, and sensor weapons from the CIC. Some may be fired systems, including those that are classified. directly from the CIC, while orders to others The CITS program, based at the Air Force’s are relayed via sound-powered phones to Electronic Systems Center at Hans com Air gun crews, who then fire the weapons. Force Base, Massachusetts, is intended to A version of the CIC can also be found on modernize the information transport capa- board Airborne Warning and Control System bility at each Air Force base, replace obsolete aircraft specially equipped to collect, display, copper cable with the latest fiber technology, evaluate, and disseminate tactical informa- improve network management, and up - tion for the use of the commanding officer or grade voice phone service with new digital ground control agencies. Such a CIC can switches. serve as air traffic control, providing com- The CITS includes several interconnected munications and navigation information to parts. The Information Transport System other aircraft. It can also serve as an aerial includes everything that relates to the physical command post. pathways that information passes through, Christopher H. Sterling network defense concerns security, and net- See also Airborne Warning and Control System work management provides the control. The (AWACS); Communication Satellites; Identi- Network Operations/Information Assurance, fication, Friend or Foe (IFF) Telecommunications Management System,

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and Voice Switching System combine to pro- ers, high-speed Morse was chosen. After the vide connectivity throughout the Air Force war, availability of teleprinters increased and to link in-garrison command-and-control they gradually replaced the high-speed and combat-support systems to the Defense Morse circuits. Information System Network. Network con- In the early 1950s, torn tape relay became nectivity, information assurance, asset man- common. Instead of point-to-point tele- agement, interoperability, and standard printer circuits, a destination would use interfaces to joint service networks form the reperforator equipment, which punched out core concerns for this program. a five-unit tape. The tape could then be man- Christopher H. Sterling ually inserted into an auto head (tape See also Air Force Communications Service reader), which would transmit the tape on to (AFCS), Air Force Communications a selected circuit. Command (AFCC) (1961–1991); Defense During the following decade, COMCAN Communications System (DCS); Fiber introduced the Signal Transmit Receive and Optics; Global Information Grid (GIG) Distribution system and its associated Tele- Sources graph Automatic Relay Equipment, which General Dynamics Network Systems. provided message switching facilities at pri- “Programs & Contracts: CITS.” [Online mary sites throughout the British Common- information; retrieved March 2006.] http:// wealth, thus providing a fast automatic tape www.gd-ns.com/cits/. relay network. Taken over by the Royal Air Mondro, Mitchell J. “Combat Information Transport System: Reliability and Availability Force in the late 1960s, the COMCAN system Performance.” [Online article; retrieved April survived until the 1980s. 2006.] http://www.mitre.org/work/ Cliff Lord tech_papers/tech_papers_00/mondro See also High-Speed Morse; Morse Code; _cits/mondro.pdf. Teleprinter/Teletype; United Kingdom: Royal Air Force

Commonwealth Communications Sources Army Network (COMCAN) Blaxland, John. 1998. Swift and Sure, A History of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals 1947– 1972. Canberra: Royal Australian Corps of The Commonwealth Communications Army Signals Corps Committee. Network (COMCAN) was a teleprinter- Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: based system that connected British military A History of its Antecedents and Development bases and the military establishments of var- (circa 1800–1955), 479–481. London: Royal ious commonwealth countries. The network Signals Institution. interfaced with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States. COMCAN evolved from the British Communication Satellites Army’s strategic Army Chain, a worldwide wireless network linking British military Military satellites are usually strategic or tac- bases. During World War II a choice of tical. Strategic satellites are typically net- replacing hand-speed Morse with high- worked through fixed ground stations. They speed Morse or teleprinters had to be made. allow communications between stations Due to production difficulties with teleprint- served by the same satellite using any num-

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ber of routes. Tactical satellite systems, on as underwater cables, land lines, microwave the other hand, utilize mobile earth stations. transmission, and television signals. Subma- Military users have traditionally avoided rine cables are expensive to lay and lack the commercial satellites because of security large capacity necessary to meet the contin- concerns, though increased use of encryption ual demand for more circuits. Because eases that worry. microwave transmissions travel in a straight A communication satellite must have a line, relay stations have to be constructed receiver and a transmitter, antennas for both about every thirty-five miles. The relay sta- functions, a method to convert the received tions must receive, amplify, and retransmit message at the transmitter, and a source of the signal. Normal radio transmissions are electrical power. The ground portion of a subject to atmospheric disturbances, such as satellite system consists of a transmitter, a sun spots. The optimum altitude for a com- receiver, antennas, and a means of connect- munication satellite is 22,300 miles above ing the station to end users. The most obvi- the equator, where the satellite appears to be ous difference between a satellite ground stationary because it is in a geosynchronous station and a point-to-point microwave sta- orbit. A constellation of three such satellites, tion is that the satellite high-gain antenna is positioned 120 degrees from each other, with able to track the satellite. the capability of relaying communications between the satellites, provides communica- Origins tions to virtually every part of the earth The U.S. Army and Navy experimented with except the North and South poles. reflecting radio signals off the moon in the On 4 October 1957, military and civilian 1940s and 1950s; the Army did so for the communications changed with the launch of first time on 11 January 1946. On 24 July the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1. On 18 December 1954, as a part of the Navy’s Communication 1958, the United States Signal Communica- Moon Relay Project (CMR), James H. Trexler, tions by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE) an engineer at the Naval Research Labora- was launched and a taped Christmas message tory, became the first person to transmit his from President Dwight Eisenhower voice into space and have it returned to was broadcast from orbit. SCORE was also earth. The CMR was first tested and publicly used to transmit messages between Arizona, revealed in January 1960 and operated Texas, and Georgia. SCORE was a store-and- between Hawaii and Maryland with sixteen forward satellite, receiving a message from teleprinter channels at the rate of sixty words earth, storing it on a tape, and then retransmit- per minute. Within two years, the system ting it on command from an earth station. On had been expanded to include ship-to-shore 12 August 1960, the ECHO 1 satellite, a passive communications. The CMR was the only aluminized Mylar balloon, was launched, and operational satellite communications relay experiments with radio and television trans- system in the world until the Defense Satel- mission began in earnest. The first geosyn- lite Communications System began opera- chronous satellite, Syncom III, launched in tion on 16 June 1966. August 1964. The Syncom series was a joint All of these experiments were intended to project of the U.S. Department of Defense and use the theoretical advantages that satellite the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- communications offer over the traditional istration to demonstrate the economic viabil- methods of long-haul communications such ity of satellite communications.

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Spreading Use (1990–1991) was summarized by Lieutenant The Soviet Union followed its initial Sputnik General James Cassity, Joint Staff Directorate by launching more satellites than any other for C3 Systems, who said, “From day one, nation. The Soviet space program ranked satellite communications have been our second only to the United States in the bread and butter. From first deployment resources devoted to its efforts. Most Soviet through today, military and commercial military satellites, regardless of type, were satellite communications systems have been named Cosmos. In addition, “civilian” satel- vital in providing essential command and lites, the use of which the Soviets did not control.... In 90 days, we established more want to explain, also received the Cosmos military communications connectivity to the designation. In the three decades leading to Persian Gulf than we have in Europe after 40 1990, most, if not all, satellites launched by years.” The essential role played by satellites the Soviets had some military functions. In in that conflict was noted by military plan- the post-Soviet era, Russian military satel- ners around the world. lites are identified as such, but still receive the Cosmos identifier. Present U.S. Military Satellites Development of military satellite commu- Current U.S. MILSATCOM architecture has nications had drawn heavily upon advance- three basic systems: the Fleet Satellite Com- ments in the construction of commercial munications system (FLTSATCOM), the satellites. The fact that the Intelsat IV satellite Defense Satellite Communications System had more than 4,000 two-way voice channels (DSCS), and Milstar. The satellites of each was a powerful incentive for developers of system operate in the geosynchronous orbit high-capacity military communications sys- (22,300 miles high), and each system utilizes tems. The number of nations providing specific frequency ranges. FLTSATCOM satel- domestic satellite service has increased dra- lites operate in the ultra-high frequencies at matically since Canada started the service in 225–400 MHz; DSCS satellites operate in the 1972 and the United States launched its first super-high frequencies at 7250–8400 MHz; in 1974. and Milstar satellites operate in the extremely Planners at the Department of Defense high frequencies at 22–44 GHz. A fourth sys- increasingly realized that a specialized archi- tem, the Air Force Satellite Communications tecture for military satellite communications System (AFSATCOM), is supported by the (MILSATCOM) was necessary. The first MIL- three basic systems. AFSATCOM has no ded- SATCOM architecture was published in 1976 icated satellites but uses channels or transpon- and has been refined numerous times to meet ders on the satellites of the MILSATCOM changing requirements and advances in tech- system. The AFSATCOM is used to transmit nology. The architecture has three parts: Emergency Action Messages and Single Inte- mobile and tactical, wideband, and protected grated Operation Plan messages. systems. Users are grouped together accord- The U.S. Navy’s FLTSATCOM system pro- ing to their requirements that can be met by a vided near worldwide coverage through its common satellite system. constellation of geosynchronous satellites. Development of more sophisticated elec- The FLTSATCOM system was the first oper- tronics has increased the capability of satel- ational system fielded by the Department of lite communication. Its importance to Defense to support tactical operations. The military operations during the Gulf War first FLTSATCOM satellite was launched in

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1978 and the last in 1989. The system was of data to numerous small antennas. The used by naval aircraft, ships, submarines, system broadcasts only one way and resem- and ground stations. In addition, the system bles the system used for home satellite tele- supported communications between the vision reception. The need for the GBS National Command Authority and high- system grew out of the Gulf War when ser- priority users, such as the White House vice-operated and commercial leased com- Communications Agency. munication channels were overloaded and In an effort to increase the use of leased essential information had to be moved to commercial satellites, Congress directed that fighting units by airlift assets. Since the GBS the follow-on system for FLTSATCOM be can transmit to small, phased-array antennas leased. The LEASAT program primarily on mobile platforms, data can be transmitted served the Navy, the Air Force, and mobile to forces while they are in motion. Commer- ground forces. The LEASAT program used cial off-the-shelf and government off-the- FLTSATCOM terminals, and its communica- shelf technology were used to quickly tions channels were very similar to FLTSAT- acquire and field the GBS capability. COM. The first LEASAT was launched in The DSCS provides secure voice, teletype, 1984 and the last in 1990. By 1999, all of the television, facsimile, and digital data services. FLTSATCOM satellites had been removed The primary users of the DSCS are the Global from service. Command and Control System, White House FLTSATCOM and LEASAT satellite sys- Communications Agency, Defense Informa- tems were both replaced by UHF Follow-On tion Systems Network, Defense Switched (UHF F/O) satellites. The Navy’s require- Network, Defense Message System, Ground ments for additional UHF capacity had Mobile Forces, the Diplomatic Telecommuni- increased dramatically after the FLTSAT- cations Service, and several allied nations. COM system was initiated. The UHF F/O The DSCS evolved through three phases: constellation of satellites was implemented to DSCSI, or the Initial Defense Satellite Com- meet the increased demand for more capac- munications System (IDSCS), began in 1967; ity. The first successful launch was in 1993 DSCSII began in 1971 with the launch of two and the last in 1999. Two UHF F/O satellites satellites; and DSCSIII began in 1982 when its are located at each of the FLTSATCOM loca- first satellite was launched. The five DSCSIII tions. The new satellites more than double satellites allow most earth terminals to access the capacity of the system. All of the UHF two satellites. The Ground Mobile Forces F/O satellites are electromagnetic pulse pro- (GMF) operate on a subnetwork using the tected. The satellites carry transponders for DSCS satellites. The GMF subnetwork re- use by the Milstar ground terminals and the quires use of a gateway terminal as it is not Global Broadcast Service (GBS). The en - compatible with the DSCS network’s strate- hanced capability of the satellites has allowed gic terminal. a reduction in the size of terminals; for exam- The Milstar Satellite Communications ple, the Army’s Enhanced Manpack UHF ter- System is the most advanced satellite com- minal can be carried, set up, and used by munications system. It provides secure, jam- individual soldiers to communicate using the resistant, worldwide communications to UHF F/O satellites. meet joint service requirements. The Milstar The GBS utilizes technology from com- system consists of five satellites in geosyn- mercial television to broadcast large streams chronous orbits, the first of which was

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launched 7 February 1994. Milstar terminals Elfers, Glen, and Stephen B. Miller. 2001. allow a user to transmit encrypted voice, “Future U.S. Military Satellite Communica- data, teletype, or facsimile communications. tion Systems.” [Online article; retrieved De - cember 2006.] www.aero.org/publications/ The satellite functions as a switchboard by crosslink/winter2002/08.html. routing traffic from terminal to terminal any- Federici, Gary. 1997. “From the Sea to the Stars: where on earth. The system has reduced A History of U.S. Navy Space and Space- requirements for ground-controlled switch- Related Activities.” [Online article; retrieved ing because the satellite processes the com- December 2006.] http://www.history .navy.mil/books/space/index.htm. munications signal and can link with other Martin, Donald H. 2001. “A History of U.S. satellites in the constellation through cross- Military Satellite Communication Systems.” links. One of the driving factors behind the [Online article; retrieved December 2006.] Milstar program is to provide interoperable www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/ communications between Army, Navy, and winter2002/01.html. Air Force Milstar users. National Aeronautics and Space Administra- tion. “DSCS (Defense Satellite Communica- The capability of the Milstar system to tions System).” [Online information; operate under adverse conditions, such as retrieved December 2006.] http://msl.jpl jamming and nuclear attack, is achieved by .nasa.gov/Programs/dscs.html. frequency hopping, extensive on-board pro- RussianSpaceWeb.com. 2006. “Spacecraft: cessing, and crosslinks. The flexibility of the Military.” [Online information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www.russian Milstar system is improved by multiple spaceweb.com/spacecraft_military.html. uplink and downlink channels operating at different rates; multiple uplink and down- link beams; and routing of individual signals Communications Security between uplinks, downlinks, and crosslinks. (COMSEC) Tommy R. Young II Communications security measures, along See also Defense Information Systems Agency with computer security, are a vital subcom- (DISA); Defense Message System (DMS); ponent of information security. Communica- Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP); Global Command and Control System (GCCS); Gulf tions security covers a range of measures War (1990–1991); Spectrum Frequencies; taken to prevent unauthorized individuals White House Communications Agency from gaining information from the intercep- (WHCA) tion and study of telecommunications or to mislead unauthorized individuals in the use Sources and study of the information. COMSEC Butricia, Andrew J., ed. 1997. Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communi includes security of transmission, physical cation. NASA History Series SP-4217. facilities, emissions, and cryptography. Washington, DC: Government Printing Transmission security is designed to pro- Office. tect information transmissions from inter- Cassity, James. 1991. “Operation Desert ception, analysis, imitative deception, and Storm—The J-6 Perspective.” AFCEA News February. any type of disruption other than by crypto- Chun, Clayton K. S. 2006. Defending Space: U.S. graphic means. Physical security relates to Anti-Satellite Warfare and Space Weaponry. the protection of cryptographic materials, Oxford: Osprey Publishing. information, and equipment from unautho-

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rized individuals. Emission security involves PCMCIA (or PC card) reader. The card con- procedures to prevent emanations from tains the capstone cryptographic engine, the telecommunications systems, computers and user’s private key that will provide crypto- their networks, and cryptographic equip- graphic services—the encryption and de - ment. Cryptographic security is the proper cryption of messages. Each card is prepared use of cryptosystems. To ensure that military for the individual user, and the user is communications are secure, all four elements required to authenticate before accessing the must be considered in the development and system. The card also contains the user’s use of communications systems. privileges and what precedence information Rapid technological developments in both he or she can access. telecommunications and computers have Communications security is essential to increased the COMSEC challenge. The ability the military and is gaining additional impor- to transmit vast amounts of information and tance in the civilian community. The explo- data through numerous communications sys- sion of communications and computer tems means that opportunities for compro- technology has had a significant impact on mising integrity of both the system and its all organizations that handle sensitive infor- data have increased dramatically. To meet mation, such as financial, medical, and per- this concern, older systems have been sonnel data. The development of personal replaced by better ones utilizing newer tech- communications devices, laptops, personal nologies. Examples include the Secure Tele- digital assistants, and cell phones with text phone Units–III, which have replaced the messaging capability means that large data- Automatic Secure Voice Communications bases of sensitive information have become System; the Automatic Digital Network, portable. The development of wireless com- which has been replaced by the Defense munications for computers has increased the Message System; and the Secret Internet Pro- possibility that sensitive information will tocol Router Network, which provides secure pass through a nonsecure system. As the networking for computers. Improvements equipment for personal communications within these and other systems have raised continues to improve, the requirement to the security of communications by reducing adhere to the basic rules of COMSEC will the possibility of intercepting or disrupting remain essential to successful military and transmissions; these include meteor burst civilian operations. communications, packet switching, frequency Tommy R. Young II hopping, multiple security levels, firewalls, See also Automatic Digital Network encryption programs, and system and (AUTODIN); Automatic Secure Voice machine passwords. Communications (AUTOSEVOCOM); Code One of the most important items in ensur- Breaking; Computer; Computer Security ing the security of American military com- (COMPUSEC); Defense Message System munications is the use of the FORTEZZA (DMS); Internet; Meteor Burst Communica- card. The card was developed using specifi- tions (MBC); National Security Agency (NSA); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) cations and requirements of the National Security Agency’s Multi-level Information Sources System Security Initiative. The credit card– Information Warfare website. “Security size FORTEZZA card plugs into the user’s Awareness Toolbox.” [Online information;

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retrieved April 2007.] http://iwar.org.uk/ During World War I (1914–1918), mechan- comsec/resources/sa-tools/. ical analog machines were used for gunnery National Security Agency Central Security calculations. In 1931 Massachusetts Institute Service. “COMSEC Evaluation Programs.” [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] of Technology researcher Vannevar Bush http://www.nsa.gov/ia/industry/cep (1890–1974) built the first large-scale auto- .cfm. matic general purpose mechanical analog computer, called the “differential analyzer.” Over the years, Bush replaced mechanical Computer parts with electromechanical and then elec- tronic devices. In 1935 British mathematician The effort to produce a machine capable of Alan Turing (1912–1954) advanced his the- carrying out numerous complex calculations ory for the modern computer. Known as the was a goal of researchers for hundreds of “universal machine,” it would have limitless years. Initially the term “computer” was memory and a scanner that would move applied to human clerks who did calcula- through the memory reading symbols and tions in an effective manner. By the early writing additional symbols. The scanner’s twentieth century, the term “computing activities were dictated by instructions machines” was applied to machines that did stored in the machine’s memory. Though he the calculations performed by the human worked with electromechanical devices for computers. Eventually the term was short- code breaking during World War II, Turing ened to computer. would have to wait until after the war to Charles Babbage (1791–1871) proposed build a stored program computing machine. one of the earliest devices that offered the The war effort hastened programs to possibility of producing a computing develop a functional electronic digital com- machine. His “difference engine” was a dig- puter. The need to decipher German radio ital computing machine intended to auto- communications led to the development of matically produce mathematical tables and the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park. was constructed from mechanical compo- The first of nearly a dozen of the large nents. Babbage never completed his full- machines was installed on 8 December 1943. scale engine, but he did complete a small A faster version with greater capabilities was model, which was used for mathematical operational six months later. Colossus lacked calculations. Babbage also proposed a sec- two features of modern computers: inter- ond machine, known as the “analytical nally stored programs and application to engine,” which was to have been a general- general purposes. As it was designed for a purpose mechanical digital computer. The specific code-breaking task, the operator had analytical engine was to have a memory to alter the machine’s wiring when a new store and a central processing unit and task was to be executed. Eight of the machines would have been controlled by a program of were destroyed at the end of the war to main- instructions contained on punched cards. tain their secrecy, while two were retained by The work done by Babbage would spur oth- the British code-breaking office for training, ers to continue to design and attempt to ceasing operation only in 1960. Existence of build a computing machine. the Colossus was covered by the British Offi-

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cial Secrets Act, and it was not until the 1970s Force. In addition to ballistic computations, that any knowledge of the machines became the ENIAC performed weather predictions, public. Operational details were revealed atomic energy calculations, wind tunnel only in the late 1990s. design, and other scientific calculations. In the United States, the U.S. Army Ord- Despite various efforts to modernize the nance Department was overwhelmed by ENIAC, operating costs were high and the requests for the preparation of firing and workload was shifted to other machines. On bombing tables. The repetitive work was per- 2 October 1955, power to the ENIAC was formed at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at turned off. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, by Advances in mainframe computers came civilian “computers.” At the beginning of the rapidly following the conclusion of World war, the workers used desk calculators and a War II. In 1949, the first practical stored pro- differential analyzer to prepare the tables. By gram computer, EDSAC, was developed at early 1942, it was apparent that the human Cambridge University. The same year, Engi- computers could not keep up with the work- neering Research Associates of Minneapolis load. A contract was made with the Moore built the ERA-101, the first commercially School of Electrical Engineering of the Univer- produced computer. The first customer for sity of Pennsylvania to use its differential ana- the ERA-101 was the U.S. Navy. In 1951, the lyzer. A number of talented scientists and first UNIVAC was built by Remington Rand engineers at the Moore School, such as physi- and delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau. cist John W. Mauchly (1907–1980) and engi- International Business Machines (IBM) neer J. Presper Eckert, Jr. (1919–1995), began shipped its first electronic computer, the 701 work on an electronic numerical integrator in 1953. The following year, the IBM 650, the and computer (ENIAC) under a contract with first mass-produced computer to use mag- the Ordnance Department. The ENIAC’s netic data storage drums, was introduced. component assembly began in June 1944. The The military was among the initial cus- computer was dedicated on 15 February 1946 tomers for these expensive mainframe com - and accepted by the Ordnance Department in puters. They were used for stand-alone July. The room-size computer was disman- operations and were for the most part de - tled in the winter of 1946–1947 and moved to signed for specific jobs, such as logistics man- Aberdeen where, by August 1947, it was agement systems, personnel, and financial again operational. management. The Semi-Automatic Ground The ENIAC was a huge machine. It con- Environment system, implemented in 1958, sisted of thirty separate floor units, plus which linked hundreds of radar stations in power supply and a forced air cooling unit— the United States and Canada, was the first it weighed more than 30 tons and occupied large-scale communications network. The 1,800 square feet. It included some 19,000 dedicated computer systems were usually vacuum tubes; 1,500 relays; and thousands of located in large data processing or com - resistors, capacitors, and inductors. During munications centers that were built specifi- its decade of active use, the ENIAC operated cally to house the computers and their for 80,223 hours performing the computation associated peripherals, data entry terminals, of all ballistic tables for the Army and Air tape drives, card readers, card punch

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machines, and various pieces of communica- the Information Age. The ability to utilize tions equipment. commercial communications technology For three decades, most computing by the combined with COMPUSEC has brought military was done in the batch mode or from laptop computers, personal communications terminals directly connected to the large systems, personal digital assistants, satellite mainframe computers. With the introduction telephones, and transmission of streaming of the desktop personal computer in the video to the battlefield. Computers have early 1980s, military computing changed become central and essential to military com- dramatically. The military began to develop munications. dedicated networks to allow users to com- A prediction in the March 1949 issue of municate information across the various ser- Popular Mechanics sixty years ago makes vices. The primary issue that slowed the clear just how far the revolution in informa- growth of computer networks was the tion management has come: “Where a com- requirement to protect sensitive information. puter like the ENIAC is equipped with The development and application of com- 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, puter security (COMPUSEC) measures computers in the future may have only 1,000 1 allowed users of military systems to take vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 ⁄2 tons.” advantage of the tremendous advances in Tommy R. Young II computer and network technology in the See also Bletchley Park; Bush, Vannevar (1890– 1980s and 1990s. Firewalls, passwords, and 1974); Computer Security (COMPUSEC); other measures were implemented to pro- Information Revolution in Military Affairs vide security for the information passing (IRMA); Semi-Automatic Ground Environ- through and stored on the numerous mili- ment (SAGE); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Solid State Electronics; Turing, Alan tary systems. One factor that increased the Mathison (1912–1954); Vacuum Tube speed of the acquisition of the new technol- ogy was the directive issued by the secretary Sources of defense in June 1994 requiring that the Goldstine, Herman H. 1991. “Computers at the military purchase products and components University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School, 1943–1946.” [Online article; retrieved April from commercial sources. This new policy of 2007.] http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/ buying commercial off-the-shelf devices 91moore/index.html. meant that the products would not have to Hamilton, Andrew. 1949. “Brains That Click.” be built to military specifications. Popular Mechanics, March: 162. The first Secret Internet Protocol Router Kempf, Karl. 1961. “Electronic Computers Network (SIPRNet) backbone router went Within the Ordnance Corps.” [Online article; retrieved April 2007.] http://ftp online on 3 March 1994. The SIPRNet is the .arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/ largest Department of Defense command- index.html. and-control data network. Unclassified Kopplin, John. 2002. “An Illustrated History applications, as well as controlled access to of Computers: Part 1.” [Online article; the Internet, are handled by the nonsecure retrieved April 2007.] http://www .computersciencelab.com/computerhistory/ Internet Protocol Router Network. Programs history.htm. and systems implemented to protect defense Moye, William T. 1996. “ENIAC: The Army- information have allowed the military to Sponsored Revolution.” [Online article; take full advantage of all the resources of retrieved December 2006.] http://

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ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/96summary/ introduced. The disks had to be removed index.html. from the machines and stored in accordance Sale, Tony. 2006. “Lorenz Ciphers and the with the classification of the information Colossus.” [Online article; retrieved December 2006. http://www.codesand stored on the disk, just as were the ribbons on ciphers.org.uk/lorenz/index.htm. typewriters that produced classified materi- Weik, Martin H. 1961. “The ENIAC Story.” als. In addition, the system had to be TEM- [Online article; retrieved April 2007.] PEST (a code name referring to investigations http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/ and studies of compromising emanations) eniac-story.html. tested to ensure that the word processor was Williams, Michael. 1997. A History of Computing Technology. 2nd ed. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE not emanating electronic signals that could be Computer Society Press. monitored by those unauthorized to access the information. Early word processing equipment could be confined to specific areas that could be Computer Security controlled, as the equipment was not located (COMPUSEC) on every desk. Two of the earliest solutions to the processing of classified information Computer security is the application of mea- on personal computers (PCs) were the use sures and controls that will ensure the con- of a removable hard drive or a dedicated fidentiality, integrity, and availability of the machine. With the removable hard drive, information processed and stored by a com- programs and data were stored on the hard puter. The problems of maintaining security drive, which was removed and stored in a and integrity of military computer systems security container when the classified pro- have grown dramatically with the rise of cessing was completed. The classified drive networks, personal computers, and the Inter- would be replaced by an unclassified drive net. When automated data processing was for routine data processing. In order to trans- done on large mainframe computers, the fer classified data from one PC to another, machines were located in secure data process- specially marked floppy disks were used. ing or communications facilities. The printed The dedicated machine would only be used products and data tapes produced by the sys- for classified processing and had to be tems were treated according to the classifica- secured from access by unauthorized users. tion of the information. Data were Once efforts to create local area networks communicated between the large data pro- began, the problems of protecting informa- cessing centers over secure communications tion stored and processed by PCs increased lines that complied with communications dramatically. Requirements to link PCs over security (COMSEC) standards. Taken together, wide area networks and the Internet pre- COMPUSEC and COMSEC are the two sub- sented even more challenges. One possible components of information security. solution was simply not to connect the PCs to The arrival of personal computers around a network, but that defeated the rapid shar- 1980 raised new problems. Some of the issues ing of information. Closed networks were about data security had been addressed implemented in operations centers where when word processing equipment using access was controlled. These measures, magnetic disks to store information was combined with firewalls and individual and

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systems passwords, were implemented to Schneier, Bruce. 2000. Secrets & Lies: Digital protect the information contained on the sys- Security in a Networked World. New York: tems. It very quickly became apparent that to Wiley. Stoll, Clifford. 1989. Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy take full advantage of the opportunities Through the Maze of Computer Espionage. offered by the computing revolution, addi- Garden City, NY: Doubleday. tional measures were required. By the 1990s, the Department of Defense had created two networks and the National Confederate Army Signal Corps Security Agency had developed and trade- marked a number of security products, the At the beginning of the American Civil War most important of which was the FOR - both North and South recognized that a tac- TEZZA card. The nonsecure Internet Protocol tical communications system could provide Router Network provides a seamless interop- timely information across the ever-growing erability for unclassified applications and distances of the battlefield. But that capabil- controlled access to the Internet. The Secret ity required having dedicated soldiers to Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) undertake these tasks and the resources to is the Department of Defense’s largest inter- equip and supply such an arm. Though operable command-and-control data net- Union Army Major Albert J. Myer, the first work. The SIPRNet supports the Global signal officer in either army, had convinced Command and Control System, the Defense the U.S. Congress of the need to invest in Message System, and other classified sys- such a branch, it was the Confederate States tems. The FORTEZZA card is prepared for that organized the first independent branch the individual user who must authenticate of signalmen in history. before accessing the system. The card also The Confederates quickly embraced the contains the user’s privileges and what new signal capability during the first great precedence messages that user can originate. battle fought at Bull Run in July 1861. Former With these measures in place, the military Myer protege Captain Edward Porter has been able to take full and safe advantage Alexander was charged with organizing a of new information technology. Security of small signal element with four men hastily the information is dependent on the user, trained in the use of the wig-wag system. however. If rules and procedures are not fol- This investment of manpower paid off on 21 lowed and equipment is used improperly, July 1861 when Alexander, while atop one of COMPUSEC measures are useless. the signal towers, discovered Union columns Tommy R. Young II attempting to turn the Confederate left flank. See also Communications Security (COMSEC); He used the wig-wag system to get a mes- Computer; DARPANET; Defense Message sage to General P. G. T. Beauregard, and, for System (DMS); Global Command and the first time in U.S. history, tactical informa- Control System (GCCS); Internet; National tion had been transmitted more rapidly than Security Agency (NSA) a courier could ride. Sources While Alexander was performing his Anderson, Ross J. 2001. Security Engineering: A duties another officer, Captain William Nor- Guide to Building Dependable Distributed ris, had developed his own signal system Systems. New York: Wiley. employing flags and balls on poles based on

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his experience in naval operations. Another destine activities, and a fire destroyed all of officer who had adopted the Myer system Norris’s personal papers. Throughout the was Captain James F. Milligan, who oper- Civil War Confederate signalmen relayed ated along the James River. In order to pro- critical intelligence and orders to leaders in vide standardization of the various signaling all theaters of war. By the end of the Civil activities the Confederate government War, more than 1,500 men had served in the authorized the formation of a Signal Corps, Confederate Army as signal soldiers. which fell under the Adjutant and Inspec- Steven J. Rauch tor’s General Department for staff control. See also Airships and Balloons; Alexander, On 19 April 1862 the Confederate States Sig- Edward Porter (1835–1910); American Civil nal Corps was formed as a distinct organiza- War (1861–1865); Bull Run, Battle of (1861); tion. However, unity was not entirely Myer, Albert James (1828–1880) achieved as Milligan’s unit continued to serve as an independent signal corps, which Sources Alexander, E. Porter. 1989. Fighting for the caused some friction throughout the war. Confederacy, edited by Gary W. Gallagher. Since Alexander desired field command Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina duties, Norris was selected to be the chief Press. signal officer with the rank of major. The Gaddy, David Winfred. 1975. “William Norris branch was initially authorized ten officers, and the Confederate Signal and Secret Service.” Maryland Historical Magazine 70 ten sergeants, and any additional soldiers (Summer): 167–188. required to perform signal duties. Norris Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the lobbied for more men and had the law Message Through: A Branch History of the US amended on 27 September 1862 to one major, Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: U.S. ten captains, twenty lieutenants, and twenty Army Center of Military History. sergeants, with soldiers assigned as needed. In addition Special Order Number 40 directed every officer in the Adjutant Gen- Coston Signals eral’s Corps, all staff officers, and all aides- de-camp to be knowledgeable in the use of Utilized by the U.S. Navy during the Amer- wig-wags and signals. The equipment they ican Civil War (1861–1865), Coston, or night, used was based on Myer’s system and signals were a system of pyrotechnical signal included the use of a cipher system to en- flares (semaphore) for use in nighttime code messages, though the Union was fre- communication between ships and from quently able to break those codes. ships to land. The Coston system of bright, The Confederate Army had a wide view long-lasting signal flares revolutionized regarding the duties of the Signal Corps. By naval communication and continued in the end of the war it was responsible for use (especially by lifesaving services) for electrical telegraphy, military intelligence, decades. espionage networks, naval communications A former naval scientist, Benjamin Frank- for blockade runners, and experimentation lin Coston had died in 1848, leaving behind with hot air balloons. Many of the activities only a rough sketch in his diary of plans for of the branch are still shrouded in secrecy as pyrotechnic signaling flares. In need of funds many records were destroyed to shield clan- to support her two surviving children, and

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with considerable effort, his twenty-one- runners. Coston signals were one means year-old widow, Martha J. Coston (1829– of coordinating the ships involved in the 1904), developed the idea into an elaborate reduction of Fort Fisher (North Carolina) system of night signal flares allowing ships early in 1865. to communicate after dark. She received a Coston established the Coston Supply patent (in her husband’s name) in 1859. Company in 1859 to manufacture the night Coston’s challenge had been to develop a signals, manufacturing more than 100,000 flame that would burn long enough and during the Civil War years alone. The Coston used a coded combination of colors. She system was patented abroad and adopted worked for a decade with chemists before by numerous governments including those finally achieving her first patent for the of France, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, “pyrotechnic night signal” system. Her sys- and Brazil. Coston patented improvements tem was based on the use of both colors and in the system in 1871 (this time in her own patterns. Three cartridges of different colors name), and secured patents in European (white, red, and green—an attempt to use a countries as well. Her two surviving sons patriotic blue color had failed) were flashed were brought into the business and inherited or burned in combinations representing the the company from her. The U.S. Coast Guard numbers zero through nine and letters A and the Lifesaving Service made use of Cos- through P, for a total of twenty-seven possi- ton signals well into the twentieth century. ble combinations. “P” indicated a message The Coston company remained in business was coming while “A” was a “yes” response at least into the 1980s. that the receiver was ready, or had received Christopher H. Sterling the message sent. Other words were sent by See also American Civil War (1861–1865); standard code of different number combina- Code, Codebook; Lights and Beacons; tions. The flare was produced by burning a Night Signals; Semaphore (Mechanical specific chemical composition for each Telegraphs) desired color. A handle was used to hold the Sources color cartridge to be burned. Coston, Martha J. 1886. Signal Success: The Work In 1859 a panel of three Navy officers care- and Travels of Mrs. Martha J. Coston. Philadel- fully tested the Coston system and recom- phia: J. B. Lippincott. mended its adoption to the secretary of the Coston, Martha J. “Night Signals (Coston Navy. Hundreds of sets of the flares were Flares).” [Online article; retrieved sold to the Navy, and in 1861, Coston sold November 2004.] http://scard.buffnet.net/ pages/signal/signalpages/flare/coston her U.S. patent rights for the equipment and .html. the related code to the Navy for $20,000 Pilato, Denise E. 2002. “Martha Coston: A under the provisions of an act of Congress. Woman, a War, and a Signal to the World.” Coston signals were widely used by the [Online article; retrieved November 2004.] naval squadrons blockading the Confeder- http://www.ijnhonline.org/volume1 _number1_Apr02/pdf_april02/pdf_pilato acy and seeking to capture or sink Southern .pdf. vessels attempting to run the blockade. Some U.S. Army Signal Corps. 1910. Visual Signaling. operations developed their own special Washington, DC: War Department, Office of codes for terms used in stopping blockade the Chief Signal Officer.

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Couriers served for a time as a courier for his Bavarian regiment on the Western Front early in The use of couriers to send military mes- World War I. sages includes the use of runners, messen- As motorized and then air transport gers, dispatch carriers (or riders), and relays, became available, couriers could travel still whether on foot or traveling by other means. faster and farther—and sometimes with This is one of the world’s oldest means of greater safety. Traveling out of uniform and communication, limited in speed only by the with many others, they often melted into the pace of a human runner or his mode of trans- background, making capture less likely. The port. Use of couriers depends most on peo- use of multiple couriers using different routes ple and least on technology. also helped them elude capture. Yet condi- Pheidippides, who died of exhaustion tions on battlefields (including crowded after running 26 miles from Marathon to roadways) have always required human Athens in 490 BCE, is the earliest known couriers on foot, including numerous in - runner carrying military information (in this stances in both world wars. Military use of case of a victory of Athens over a Persian couriers has always suffered a crucial poten- force). For centuries, messages were verbally tial drawback—capture of the courier by received and delivered. Only much later enemy forces, which at least would prevent were messages carried in more permanent a message getting through and at worst form. The relay was an organized system of would give away the content of the message multiple couriers/runners allowing the car- carried. rying of messages over greater distances. U.S. military courier corps have been reor- British kings developed a regular courier/ ganized many times. The Defense Postal messenger service by the late twelfth century Express Service became the Army Security and much of its role concerned the constant Service, and in 1946 the Security Courier Ser- military campaigns afflicting the country. vice. After 1953 the Department of Defense Couriers began to use horses at some time operated the Armed Forces Courier Service, in antiquity. As other modes of transport which in 1987 became simply the Defense (e.g., ships powered by oars, sails, and even- Courier Service (DCS) under the direction of tually steam) became available, couriers the Army’s chief of staff. DCS headquarters could travel ever faster and much farther. and training are based at Fort Meade, Mary- Military roads and the later military railway land. DCS has about 300 personnel to serve were critically important to couriers. The some 6,500 users through thirty-six stations British army introduced courier use of the around the world. They make use of both military bicycle in 1881; the French did like- military and civilian modes of transport. The wise in 1896. French examination boards British Forces Post Office provides a parallel required a courier to be able to ride 40 miles function for the British army. through hilly country in no more than six Christopher H. Sterling hours—and the ability to repair the bicycle. See also Fort Meade, Maryland; Horses and U.S. Army units were also equipped with Mules; Military Roads; Mobile Communica- bicycle couriers by at least the 1890s. Such tions; Native American Signaling; Postal couriers were usually armed. Adolf Hitler Services

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Sources intelligence (SIGINT) when American inter- Department of Defense. “Defense Courier cept operators began to hear Spanish along Service (DCS).” [Online directive; retrieved with the usual mix of Slavic coming from air- October 2004.] http://www.fas.org/irp/ doddir/dod/d5200_33.htm. fields in Czechoslovakia, where Cuban pilots Harfield, Alan. 1989. Pigeon to Packhorse: were being trained. In response, U.S. intelli- The Illustrated Story of Animals in Army gence began a closer focus on Cuban infor- Communication. Chippenham, UK: Picton mation, including U-2 aircraft overflights Publishing. and radio intercepts. It soon became appar- Hill, Mary C. 1961. The King’s Messengers 1199– ent that the Soviet Union was building nine 1377: A Contribution to the History of the Royal Household. London: Edward Arnold. intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) Wheeler-Holohan, V. 1934. The History of the launch facilities in western Cuba for missiles King’s Messengers. New York: Dutton. that could carry nuclear warheads. The sites Woods, David L. 1965. “Messengers: Men, were about a hundred miles from Florida, Horses and Dogs.” In A History of Tactical and the missiles’ potential range (over 2,000 Communication Techniques, chap IV. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno miles) would take in much of the eastern Press, 1974). United States. The National Security Agency deployed a considerable capability around Cuba, including SIGINT from ground-based Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) stations and aircraft circling the periphery of the island, just outside Cuban territorial The tense military and political face-off waters. The USS Oxford, a specially config- between the United States and the Soviet ured SIGINT collection ship, sailed close to Union in October 1962 was probably the the Cuban coastline intercepting radio com- most dangerous moment in the long Cold munications. War. Signals and other intelligence played a On 16 October the CIA produced for Pres- central part on both sides of the conflict. ident John F. Kennedy hundreds of detailed When Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in aerial photographs clearly identifying IRBM 1959, he was hailed as a liberator by the sites and anti-aircraft missile support facili- Cuban people and became a hero to many ties (despite attempts to camouflage them), Americans as well. Castro soon publicly all nearing completion. Regular aerial pho- aligned his country with the Soviet Union. In tography showed four sites were operational Havana, one of the consequences of this just days later. After a week of intense analy- change was the fear that the United States sis and policy debate (including bombing or might intervene against the new Cuban gov- invasion options), Kennedy went public on ernment. That concern was strengthened in 22 October with a nationally televised April 1961, when Cuban exiles, trained by address and announced the placing of a America’s Central Intelligence Agency naval quarantine (essentially a blockade) in (CIA), staged a botched invasion at Cuba’s a ring 500 miles from Cuba to prevent Soviet Bay of Pigs. ships from carrying further missile equip- Agreements with the Soviet Union were ment to the island. U.S. Navy surface and followed by a secret Soviet arms buildup in submarine units moved into place to attack Cuba in the summer of 1962. The first indi- any ship crossing the declared line. A week cations of that buildup came from signals of intensive face-off and direct communica-

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During the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, many modes of communication informed American political and military actions. Photographs from U-2 and other reconnaissance aircraft (here a view of Mariel Bay, Cuba) provided clear evidence of Soviet missile equipment and arriving transport ships. (Library of Congress)

tions between President Kennedy and Soviet ran high over several unresolved issues. leader Nikita Khrushchev followed. On 28 Negotiations held in November 1962 finally October, the Soviets turned their ships back, resolved verification of the missile with- a fact first learned from SIGINT from radio drawal, the U.S. noninvasion “guarantee,” messages, and soon dismantled and with- and the question of Soviet jet bombers and drew the missiles. troops remaining on the island. The quaran- The crisis did not immediately end with tine ended on 20 November. the Soviet decision to remove its missiles. One later result of the face-off was instal- For three more weeks, tensions between the lation of the soon-famous “hotline” between United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union Moscow and Washington to allow rapid

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crisis resolution. With the end of the Cold retrieved July 2005.] http://www.fas.org/ War, some information on both Soviet and irp/imint/cuba.htm. Cuban intelligence gathering has also become Johnson, Thomas R., and David A. Hatch. 1998. “NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” [Online available. The crisis has become one of the article; retrieved July 2005.] http://www most studied events of the Cold War era. .nsa.gov/cuba/. Christopher H. Sterling Leighton, Richard M. 1978. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: A Case in National Security See also Airplanes; Deception; Hotline/Direct Crisis Management. Washington, DC: Communications Link (DCL); Intelligence National Defense University. Ships; National Security Agency (NSA); National Security Archive. “The Cuban Missile Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Crisis, 1962.” [Online information; retrieved July 2005.] http://www.gwu.edu/ Sources ~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/cmc/cmc Cuban Missile Crisis (various documents). http:// .html. www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/cuba.htm. Welch, David A., and James G. Blight, eds. 1998. Federation of American Scientists. “Cuban Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Missile Crisis.” [Online photographs; London: Routledge.

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DARPANET steadily growing number of computer sys- tems that DARPA managed to communicate DARPANET, developed under the supervi- with each other. These differing problems sion of the Defense Advanced Research Pro- were solved with very similar solutions and jects Agency (DARPA), is a predecessor of the result was the basic computer network the modern Internet. Initially connecting the architecture of DARPANET. Packet switch- Stanford Research Institute and the Univer- ing allowed computers to break down sity of California, Los Angeles in 1967, unique large data fields into small uniform DARPANET was retired in 1989 after being pieces or packets that could be reassembled supplanted by NSFNET, which was the by a receiving computer. immediate predecessor to the Internet. Packet switching networks offered com- DARPANET’s theoretical foundations can puter users two key new features, of which be traced to the work of three individuals the first was decentralization. Unlike tele- working independently toward different phone or postal networks, message routing ends but relying on the concept of packet was not handled at central nodes, but was switching. Paul Baran, a RAND researcher, kept at the edge of the network using sought to build a communications network dynamic routing tables. This design feature that was resilient to a nuclear attack. Donald ensured that the collapse of any individual Watts Davies, a researcher at the British node would not compromise the integrity of National Physical Laboratory, was seeking to the network. The dynamic nature of the tables create a new type of communications net- would allow the network to adjust to prob- work that took advantage of the advances in lems in other parts of the network and reroute digital technology. Robert Taylor, the director messages. Furthermore, lost or missing pack- of the Information Processing Techniques ets would be re-sent if an acknowledgment of Office (IPTO) at DARPA from 1966 through receipt was not received. Thus, DARPANET 1970, was looking for a way to allow the was highly resilient to disruption.

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The second key feature of the network de Forest, Lee (1873–1961) was its use of computer protocols. These enabled computers of differing specifications Radio engineer and inventor Lee de Forest and employing different operating systems developed the three-element vacuum tube to interconnect and communicate with one that made continuous wave transmissions another. Telnet allowed computers to com- possible, and he widely promoted early municate over telephone lines, while file radio. His wireless career often intersected transfer protocol allowed computers to inter- with military and naval communication act by exchanging data. needs, but he had limited success in serving These features met the needs of the defense those needs. research community and the defense estab- Lee de Forest was born 26 August 1873 in lishment because they made the network Council Bluffs, Iowa, growing up there and simultaneously highly resilient and easy to (after 1879) in Talladega, Alabama. He earned integrate. By the mid-1970s, the U.S. Depart- a bachelor of science degree from Yale Univer- ment of Defense was increasingly interested sity’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1896 and a in the military potential of DARPANET as a doctor of philosophy degree in physics in communications medium. In 1975 the De- 1899. His was one of the first American disser- fense Communications Agency took over tations based on Hertzian waves—an exper- management of DARPANET from IPTO with imental form of what became wireless. He disruptive results. No longer a network of was involved with many different companies largely academic users managed by acade- and stock schemes in the early twentieth cen- mics, DARPANET’s new management began tury as he actively promoted wireless while rigorously enforcing security rules and limit- seeking funds to continue his developmental ing the exchange of information among wireless work. users. This shift spurred the development of In 1902 the U.S. Signal Corps compared the civilian NSFNET, which would, in turn, de Forest, Fessenden, and Marconi equip- become the Internet. DARPANET continued ment, and decided to order de Forest’s. to operate until 1989 serving as one of many Based on this decision, the U.S. Navy exten- computer networks operated by DARPA. sively tested and compared European and John Laprise American wireless equipment, including that of de Forest, finally deciding to buy Ger- See also Computer; Defense Advanced man Slaby-Arco devices. A year later, the Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Defense Army installed de Forest apparatus as part of Communications Agency (DCA, 1960–1991); its Alaskan telegraph service. In 1907 the Internet; Semi-Automatic Ground Environ- ment (SAGE) Navy purchased twenty-six sets of de Forest equipment to furnish its “Great White Fleet” Sources of battleships, about to undertake a world Abbate, Janet. 2000. Inventing the Internet. voyage. But the equipment was hastily man- Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ufactured, was not well understood, and did Ceruzzi, Paul E. 2003. A History of Modern Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. not operate properly, and was thus taken Hafner, Katie, and Matthew Lyon. 1998. Where out save for the installation aboard U.S.S Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Ohio, which continued experimentation. The Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Signal Corps purchased de Forest radiotele-

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equipment for the Navy, which became the first installed in an airplane in 1916. These sets were later transferred to the Army Sig- nal Corps for Army Air Corps use. De Forest worked on motion picture sound systems and tinkered with television in the 1930s, publishing a book on the latter in 1941. During World War II, de Forest received patents on various aviation, radar, and bomb projects, but lacking corporate support, few were developed. But while he endlessly pro- moted himself as the “father” of radio, he contributed little more to that field. De Forest fought more than 120 patent battles with other inventors, one with Edwin Armstrong dragging on until 1934, including two Supreme Court decisions in his favor. He held 216 patents at his death. De Forest operated a small radio and film laboratory in California in his final decades and died in Hollywood on Inventor of the three-element vacuum tube (1906) 30 June 1961. which revolutionized radio communications, Lee de Christopher H. Sterling Forest eventually held more than 200 patents. He was See also Alaska Communications System; a prolific inventor and business promoter, though not Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890–1954); always successful. (Library of Congress) Fessenden, Reginald A. (1866–1932); Ohio, USS; Radio phones for use in artillery spotting at Fort Sources Monroe, Virginia. Carneal, Georgette. 1930. Conqueror of Space: The De Forest sought to develop an improved Life of Lee De Forest. New York: Horace means of detecting wireless signals, which Liveright. led in 1906 to his discovery of what he called de Forest, Lee. 1950. Father of Radio: The Autobi- the “audion,” or three-element vacuum ography of Lee De Forest. Chicago: Wilcox & tube—by far his most important contribu- Follett. Hijiya, James A. 1992. Lee De Forest and the tion. Later development of vacuum tubes Fatherhood of Radio. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh and long-distance telephony (in 1913 AT&T University Press. bought partial rights to use the audion) were Lewis, Tom. 1991. Empire of the Air: The Men based on his device. But development was Who Made Radio. New York: HarperCollins. slow due both to lack of funds and his poor understanding of what the improved tube could accomplish. The Navy purchased ten Deception de Forest vacuum tube amplifiers for testing in 1913. During World War I, de Forest devel- Modes of communication can be used oped vacuum tube radiotelephone (voice) to de ceive an enemy, as has been often

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demonstrated. Deception can be accom- radio operators who steadily broadcast plished with false messages (to suggest false “orders” to troops that did not exist, this for military plans, for example), no messages at the benefit of German radio intercept stations all (as with radio silence), or partially mis- (Allied abilities to read German Enigma leading messages. Related terms are “disin- machine-based radio traffic confirmed the formation” and “information warfare.” success of the deception). Small numbers of Several of the most pertinent examples soldiers wandered through London wearing occurred during World War II. Operation shoulder patches of nonexistent units for Mincemeat was the stuff on which adventure the benefit of possible German spies. The de- fiction is built, creating a “man who never ceptionists also sought to mislead German was.” To mislead the Italians and Germans intelligence with visual displays of mock into thinking the Allies intended to invade equipment, fake port facilities and military the island of Sardinia (rather than the real installations, gossip in neutral embassies, target of Sicily), the British concocted an deliberate leakage of seemingly confidential elaborate plan involving a dead man, using information, and double agents. The Ger- the submarine Seraph to deliver the body off mans fell for the bait and retained forces in the coast of Spain. The corpse carried a vari- the Calais region, thus easing the eventual ety of documents identifying him as Major June Allied landings in Normandy (well William Martin of the Royal Marines with south and west of Calais). To the Allies’ sur- other papers suggesting detailed Allied prise, the deception (which included another plans for an impending invasion of Sardinia. imaginary army in Scotland intending to The “drop” of the body took place on 30 invade Norway) lasted longer than six weeks April 1943. The British knew that after the after the real landings, misleading German body washed ashore (seemingly from a planners for some months. plane crash), officials in Francisco Franco’s In 1943 Britain began to use turned enemy Spain would turn over the documents to the agents against Germany (Britain’s ability to Germans. Analysis of Enigma machine radio decode German radio traffic helped to iden- traffic confirmed the delivery of the false tify the agents). Within the British security materials. (Only decades later was it organization MI-5, the Twenty Committee revealed that the body used was that of a (XX) directed by Oxford don John Master- thirty-four-year-old Welsh alcoholic suicide.) man, created the “double cross” (XX again) In Operation Fortitude, General George system of using turned double agents. The S. Patton was established as commander of Twenty Committee decided what informa- the First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG), a ficti- tion could be safely conveyed to the Ger- tious army that was seemingly based in mans by the double agents. The goal was to southeast England, giving the impression build up the double agents’ credibility by that the Allies were going to invade France feeding the Germans plausible falsehoods via the Pas de Calais (at the narrowest part of as well as accurate information they either the English Channel) sometime in early 1944. had or would obtain anyway, while giving The deception was made stronger by the fact away nothing vital. The committee ran “the that it seemed to support the already-exist- man who never was” ploy in 1943. The dou- ing German strategic thinking that Calais ble agents (of whom the most famous was was the obvious landing point for the Allied Juan Pujol, known as “Garbo”) communi- invasion. The imaginary FUSAG included cated with their Abwehr (German Intelli-

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gence) controllers by radio telegraphy, Howard, Michael. 1990. British Intelligence in the courier, mail, or personal contact. The double- Second World War: Volume 5, Strategic cross system contributed to the seeming Deception. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. validity of Operation Fortitude as well. Masterman, John C. 1972. The Double-Cross Deception continued in use during the System in the War of 1939–45. New Haven, Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as in var- CT: Yale University Press. ious Middle East wars from the 1950s to the Montagu, Ewan. 1953. The Man Who Never Was. 1970s. In the early 2000s, the Department of Philadelphia: Lippincott. Pujol, Juan, with Nigel West. 1985. Garbo: The Defense engaged in bitter, high-level debate Personal Story of the Most Successful Agent of over how far it could or should go in manag- World War II. New York: Random House. ing or manipulating information to influence Shanker, Thom, and Eric Schmidt. 2004. opinion abroad. Defense Secretary Donald “Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed Broad Arena,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (13 the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence December). in 2002, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence Defence Communications Service overseas opinion. Before the 2003 Iraq War, Agency (DCSA) the military’s electronic warfare arsenal was used to single out certain Formed in April 1998 and with an annual members of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle budget of about £1.2 billion, the British with e-mail messages and cell phone calls Defence Communications Service Agency in an effort to persuade them to the Ameri- (DCSA) is responsible for information and can cause. Deceptive communications have communication services across the Ministry also been employed in the ongoing war on of Defence (MOD). These range from fixed terrorism. and mobile telephones to satellite communi- Christopher H. Sterling cation links and from computers and associ- ated networks/infrastructures to airfield See also Electronic Countermeasures/ Electronic Warfare (ECM/EW); Propa - support. The 5,000-person agency is a mix of ganda and Psychological Warfare; Radio military and civilian staff, based throughout Silence; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Britain and around the world. DCSA’s mis- Ultra; War on Terrorism sion is to shift away from technology-centric planning to a focus on services, regardless of Sources the technologies used. Glantz, David M. 1989. Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War. London: Frank DCSA operates with six directorates (Tech- Cass. nology, Information Services Delivery, Oper- Hatfield, Thomas. 1997. “The Crucial ations, Procurement, Resources, and Strategic Deception.” [Online article; retrieved Transition) and sixteen integrated project September 2005.] http://www.utexas.edu/ teams. The latter deal with such matters as opa/pubs/discovery/disc1997v14n2/ disc-deception.html. Air Defence Ground Based Systems, Airfield Hesketh, Roger. 2000. Fortitude: The D-Day Operations Support, Defence Corporate Busi- Deception Campaign. Woodstock, NY: ness Applications, Defence Fixed Networks, Overlook Press. Defence Information Infrastructure, and tac- tical and logistic operations, both terrestrial

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and satellite based. DCSA is the liaison with See also Defence Fixed Telecommunications British Telecommunications for operation System (DFTS); United Kingdom: Royal Air of the Defence Fixed Telecommunications Force System. Sources DCSA is working to better understand Defence Communications Service Agency. 2005. interoperability requirements as a service Annual Report and Accounts. London: The provider. This encompasses each of the three Stationery Office. British military services as well as interna- Defence Communications Service Agency tional operations in both peacekeeping and website: http://www.mod.uk/dcsa/ (accessed December 2005). wartime missions (as in Iraq). With most military operations combining elements of all services, the army, navy, and air force provide their own personnel and platforms. Defence Fixed The trade-off between system capability and Telecommunications security is constantly in play. System (DFTS) Early in 2000, DCSA became a part (about 10 percent in terms of personnel) of the The Defence Fixed Telecommunications Sys- Defence Logistics Organisation. At that time, tem (DFTS) was developed in the mid-1990s DCSA added several functions such as the to integrate and digitize British army, Royal Directorate of Communications and Infor- Navy, and Royal Air Force communication mation Systems for Fleet Support and the links. Supplied by British Telecommunica- Royal Air Force Signals and Engineering tions (BT), the system was designed to serve Establishment. DCSA also assumed respon- through the early part of the twenty-first sibility for the corporate office technology century. system, which links 30,000 people at MOD Signed on 25 July 1996 after a competitive headquarters locations. bidding process, the contract from the Min- The DCSA is located at RAF Brampton. istry of Defence (MOD) with BT (which Maintenance and repair of ground radio and already operated most MOD fixed systems) radar equipment is carried out by the signed over military communication links Ground Radio Servicing Centre based at within the United Kingdom for private own- RAF Sealand. This includes radars, radio ership and operation for the first time. The navigation aids, and point-to-point and contract provided for “turnkey” service for ground-to-air communications. DCSA pro- (and maintenance and updating of) commu- vides support to technician training facilities nications rather than the traditional purchase located at RAF Cosford and RAF Sealand. of equipment. Rationalization and elimina- The agency provides an antenna systems tion of overlapping and aging technologies maintenance service on a worldwide basis, were projected to save the government £100 embracing the fields of communications, million over the decade-long life of the con- radar, and navigation aids. The personnel tract. All told, forty-six different networks required for this highly specialized work are operated by the three services and MOD trained at the Aerial Erector School at RAF were taken over and integrated. The new Digby. system is operated, as of April 1998, Christopher H. Sterling by the Defence Communications Service

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Agency. The DFTS is based in Basil Hill Bar- in response to the Soviet launching of its racks in Corsham, Wiltshire. Sputnik satellite the year before, to prevent After a period of transition and migration adversaries from technologically surprising (from 1997 to 2000), DFTS began to supply the United States. Over time its mission and manage two data services (one packet broadened to secure future American tech- switched, the other a local area network nological superiority by directing long-term interconnect service), circuit-switched tele- research and development for military appli- phone links, a point-to-point voice and data cation. DARPA is the “technological engine” service, e-mail and Internet access, and for development of new weapons and com- videoconferencing. A new numbering sys- munication systems. Its original name— tem allowed for more rapid internal MOD Advanced Research Projects Agency—was and service dialing. Various levels of security changed in 1972 to Defense Advanced Re- are available for all services, and each is search Projects Agency (in 1993 it was upgraded as needed. renamed ARPA, only to be changed back By 2005, DFTS was serving some 200,000 three years later). users making 2.5 million daily calls among DARPA’s projects usually run from three to nearly 2,500 sites across Britain. On 1 April five years. Program managers work for up to 2005, the original decade-long contract with six years so new people can bring fresh ideas, BT was extended for five more years, to July making the agency more responsive to 2012, for a total contract value of about £3 changing security challenges, scientific de- billion over fifteen years. velopments, and technological opportunities. Christopher H. Sterling Changing personnel and the lack of dedi- See also Defence Communications Service cated laboratories or facilities (DARPA Agency (DCSA); United Kingdom: Royal invests 98 percent of its funds with universi- Corps of Signals ties and industry) limit personal or institu- tional interests that might undermine the Sources agency’s purpose. Structurally, DARPA is Bridge, Maureen, and John Pegg. 2001. “Defence Fixed Telecommunications divided into (as of 2006) these technical System.” In Call to Arms: A History of offices: Defense Science Office, Microsystems Military Communications from the Crimean Technology Office, Information Processing War to the Present Day, 169–182. Tavistock, Technology Office, Tactical Technology UK: Focus. Office, and Strategic Technology Office. Comptroller and Auditor General. 2000. The Private Finance Initiative: The Contract for the The agency’s priorities have changed over Defence Fixed Telecommunications Network. time. Set up in the shadow of Sputnik, it was London: The Stationery Office. initially concerned with space; in the 1960s and 1970s that focus shifted to interconti- nental ballistic missile technology. Since then Defense Advanced Research conventional technologies have developed Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of the American information-driven revolution in military affairs. Major DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects accomplishments include stealth technology Agency (DARPA) is part of the U.S. Depart- (Have Blue program), unmanned aerial vehi- ment of Defense. It was established in 1958 cles (Teal Rain program), the Internet

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(ARPANet), space-based communication operations depends on networks that and surveillance (such as global positioning quickly and effectively distribute huge systems [GPS]), and advanced air surveil- amounts of data. The basic challenge is how lance (e.g., the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target best to build the strong communication net- Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS). works required for network-centric warfare. The eight major concerns in DARPA’s At the same time antijamming defensive early twenty-first century agenda are (1) means are developed to make communica- detection, precision identification, tracking, tion secure. One challenge that DARPA deals and destruction of elusive surface targets; with is providing each human and machine (2) robust, secure, self-forming tactical net- with a common clock time. GPS, which pro- works; (3) networked manned and un- vides one means now, cannot be relied on manned systems; (4) urban area operations; because enemy jamming could disable the (5) detection, characterization, and assess- entire network. Thus DARPA has developed ment of underground structures; (6) assured a chip-scale atomic clock to overcome this use of space; (7) cognitive computing; and (8) vulnerability. New tools for protecting the the bio-revolution. Developments in military network against computer worms are another communication techniques are vitally impor- example of ongoing activities. The neXt Gen- tant as access to accurate information has eration (XG) Communications program is become a condition sine qua non of a suc- aimed at enhancing spectrum availability for cessful military engagement. the U.S. military by a factor of ten to twenty New DARPA research programs not by dynamically allocating spectrum across only focus on “traditional” communication frequency, time, and space. The Networking (between units and command centers) but in Extreme Environments program creates also develop new warfare requirements. Cen- ultra wideband wireless networks for effec- tral to its concerns is military communication tive military communications. Another among weapons, platforms, and networks major area of DARPA’s focus is building for the twenty-first century Army. Connect- defensive means for protecting satellite sys- ing sensors, data processing computer cen- tems and other military communication ters, and weapons through numerous com- space-based devices. munication links enables the development Łukasz Kamie ski of more precision weapons. Traditional inter- See also Communication Satellites; Communi- personal communication is slowly giving cations Security (COMSEC); Computer; way to communication between humans and DARPANET; Global Positioning System weapons and among weapons systems them- (GPS); Information Revolution in Military selves. DARPA projects design new software Affairs (IRMA); Jamming; Spectrum Frequencies; Spectrum Management tools to merge a variety of data gathered by the “army of sensors” and translate it into Sources battlefield knowledge. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The modern American way of war is net- 2005. Bridging the Gap: DARPA Powered by Ideas. Washington, DC: Defense Advanced work-centric. This requires development of Research Projects Agency. new methods, channels, and techniques for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. communication between small (modular) “Welcome.” [Online information; retrieved units of various services. Conducting such November 2006.] http://www.darpa.mil.

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Van Atta, Richard H., et al. 2003. Transformation decade, it also began conversion of analog and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an DCS systems to digital technology. Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs. In the 1980s, DCA absorbed the Joint Tacti- Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses. cal Command, Control, and Communications Agency, improving its ability to manage and enhance the interoperability of command, control, and communications systems. The Defense Communications Agency Joint Interoperability Test Command was (DCA, 1960–1991) formed within DCA to provide interoperabil- ity compliance testing and certification. The Defense Communications Agency On 25 June 1991, DCA was renamed the (DCA) was established at the end of the Defense Information Systems Agency to bet- Eisenhower administration and operated for ter reflect its role in providing total informa- three decades. It was formed on 12 May 1960 tion systems management for DoD. by Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates. The Christopher H. Sterling mission of its 450 employees was to manage See also Arlington Hall; Defense Communica- the Defense Communications System (DCS), tions System (DCS); Defense Information itself a consolidation of the independent Systems Agency (DISA); White House long-haul communications functions of the Communications Agency (WHCA) Army, Navy, and Air Force. Later in the Source decade, DCA moved its headquarters to Defense Information Systems Agency. “History Arlington Hall, west of Washington DC, in of DISA.” [Online information; retrieved the Virginia suburbs. April 2005.] http://www.disa.mil/main/ Over the next three decades, DCA took about/history.html. over a variety of related functions and peri- odically reorganized. The Air Force Office of Commercial Communications Management Defense Communications Board/ (now the Defense Information Technology Board of War Communications Contracting Organization), White House (1940–1947) Signal Agency (now the White House Com- munications Agency), and Department of The Defense Communications Board, which Defense (DoD) Damage Assessment Center changed its name in mid-1942 to the Board of (now the Joint Staff Support Center) all War Communications, was created as a became a part of DCA. DCA also established means of providing overall national policy six regional communications control centers for wartime applications of the domestic and two area centers for operational control telecommunications infrastructure. The board of DCS. In the 1970s, DCA took control of the helped to create priorities for use of wired Minimum Essential Emergency Communi- and wireless networks. cations Network and the Military Satellite The Defense Communications Board was Communications Systems Office. It also established by President Franklin Roosevelt became responsible for engineering and with Executive Order 8046 on 24 September operating the World Wide Military Com- 1940. Its stated function was to plan for the mand and Control System. Early in the wartime use and control of American radio,

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telephone, telegraph, and cable communi- long-distance telephone service. It was cations. During World War II, the board con- finally abolished by President Harry Truman trolled (through the Office for Emergency in Executive Order 9831 on 24 February 1947. Management and thence to the president) Christopher H. Sterling the use of radio and wire communications, See also World War II directed the closing of some transmitters and other facilities, and established national Sources defense communication priorities. In two Federal Communications Commission. 1941– further executive orders, the board was 1945. “Defense Communications Board/ given the president’s wartime authority to Board of War Communications.” In Annual Report. Washington, DC: Government “direct that communications essential to the Printing Office. national defense and security shall have National Archives and Record Service. “Records preference or priority.” In its first year or so of the Board of War Communications.” it provided contingency plans for wartime [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] loss of communication links and civil http://www.archives.gov/research/ guide-fed-records/groups/259.html. defense. The board recommended (and the Paschal, Leo, and Robert E. Webb, comps. 1965. Federal Communications Commission “Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the [FCC] established in 1941) the Foreign Board of War Communications.” NC 133. Broadcast Monitoring Service, which con- Washington, DC: National Archives. tinues to this day as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. The board was headed by the chairman of Defense Communications System the FCC (James Lawrence Fly until 1944, (DCS) then Paul Porter) and included the chief sig- nal officer of the Army, director of Naval The Defense Communications System (DCS) Communications, assistant secretary of state combines several U.S. Department of Defense in charge of the Office of Transportation and communications systems and networks, Communications, assistant secretary of the including government and commercially treasury in charge of Treasury Enforcement operated facilities. Together, these provide Activities, and chief of Communications long-haul, point-to-point, and switched- (Coast Guard) as members. The board oper- network telecommunications. ated out of FCC offices, which provided The Defense Switched Network (DSN) is administrative support. the principal switched voice communica- With the entry of the United States into tions DCS network. It consists of a world- World War II, the board was renamed the wide network made up of many different Board of War Communications on 15 June commercial leased and government-owned 1942 (Executive Order 9183). During the next facilities. The Defense Information Systems three years it was concerned with such mat- Network integrates the Defense Data Net- ters as the speed of the domestic telegraph work packet-switching networks to provide service (then used extensively by the War worldwide packet-switched data communi- and Navy departments), closed or moni- cations through four physically separate net- tored a number of international radio tele- works, including the Military Network, graph circuits, and established priorities for which is unclassified, and three additional

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DSNs of increasing levels of classification. (DARPA); Defense Information Systems These are being transferred increasingly to Agency (DISA); Defense Message Service Internet-based systems under the Global (DMS); Defense Switched Network (DSN); Global Information Grid (GIG) Information Grid program. The Automatic Digital Network (AUTO- Source DIN) was for two decades the Department of Pike, John. 1997. “Defense Communications Defense’s common user store-and-forward System (DCS).” [Online article; retrieved message switching network for all record April 2006.] http://www.fas.org/irp/ (physical) message traffic. It consisted of a program/disseminate/dcs.htm. network of fixed and mobile switching cen- ters and communications centers. AUTO - DIN evolved from the consolidation of the Defense Special Security Communications Defense Information Systems System with the General Services Adminis- Agency (DISA) tration (GSA) system in the mid-1970s. Though the two systems merged, each The Defense Information Systems Agency retained its own identity and function. The (DISA) was established in May 1960 as the former GSA system (referred to as the “R” Defense Communications Agency (DCA), side) handled unclassified though top secret based in Washington DC with 450 personnel. record traffic. The former defense system Its initial charter was to manage and direct (referred to as the “Y” side) handled record the Defense Communications System (DCS), message traffic containing highly secure which consolidated the long-haul communi- information. By the late 1990s, however, the cations functions of the Army, Navy, and Air aging and increasingly inefficient AUTODIN Force’s independently operated communica- was being replaced with the modern e-mail– tions systems. based Defense Message System (DMS) DCA experienced rapid growth through which, in turn, was by late 2000 giving way its first two decades, incorporating as part of to the GIG. its mission the White House Signal Agency The DMS has components that provide (later the White House Communications message services and will continue to be the Agency) as well as space and ground ele- composite result of many coordinated pro- ments of the Defense Communications Satel- jects. DMS supports two classes of messages: lite System. DCA also provided engineering organizational (formal records) and individ- and technical support for the National Mili- ual (informal e-mail). Its distributed message tary Command System and, in the late 1970s, system supports online message prep aration, the World Wide Military Command and coordination, and release of organizational Control System. In January 1987, DCA messages. merged with the Joint Tactical Command, DCS also operates the extensive Defense Control, and Communications Agency. The Satellite Communications System. Joint Interoperability Test Command was Christopher H. Sterling later created for interoperability and compli- See also Automatic Digital Network ance and testing and certification. In 1989, (AUTODIN); Communication Satellites; DCA was assigned to lead the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Defense (DoD) command, control, commu-

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nications, and intelligence support on the Defense Technical Information Center and national counternarcotics operations. the Joint Spectrum Center are now aligned On 25 June 1991, DCA was redesignated under DISA. DISA to reflect its expanded role and to DISA provides seamless, end-to-end, inte- clearly identify it as a combat support grated information services intended to give agency. DISA is responsible for planning, a complete picture of any battle situation. developing, fielding, operating, and sup- The agency is responsible for planning, porting command, control, communications, developing, and supporting command, con- and information systems that serve the trol, communications, computers, intelli- needs of the highest levels of the federal gov- gence, and information systems that serve ernment including the White House, secre- national authorities in both peace and war. tary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, combat Danny Johnson commanders, and other DoD components See also Defense Communications Agency under all conditions. DISA functions under (DCA, 1960–1991); Defense Communications a director (appointed by the secretary of System (DCS); Global Command and defense) who is a three-star flag-rank officer Control System (GCCS); Joint Task responsible for coordinating communica- Force–Global Network Operations (JTF- GNO); White House Communications tions of the three military services. DISA Agency (WHCA); World Wide Military gives operational direction to DCS, ensuring Command and Control System (WWMCCS) that the system is operated and improved so as to meet continual long-haul, point- Sources to-point requirements. The director also Defense Information Systems Agency. Home commands the Joint Task Force–Global Net- page. [Online information; retrieved November 2005.] http://www.disa.mil/. work Operations and is the deputy com- Department of Defense. 1991. Defense Information mander for global network operations and Systems Agency (DISA) Directive 5105.19 June defense, U.S. Strategic Command, Joint 25. Washington, DC: Department of Defense. Forces Headquarters–Information Opera- Donnelly, Harrison, ed. 2005. “Network tions. As such, he or she is responsible for Commander: Interview with USAF Lt. Gen. directing the operation and defense of the Charles E. Croom Jr., Director, Defense Information Systems Agency.” [Online Global Information Grid to ensure timely article; retrieved April 2007.] http://www and secure network capabilities across strate- .military-information-technology.com/ gic, operational, and tactical boundaries in article.cfm?DocID=1150. support of DoD’s varied missions. Seffers, George I. 2001. “At a Glance.” Federal Besides its headquarters in Arlington, Vir- Computer Week, April 16. ginia, DISA has twenty-seven offices world- wide, more than 7,500 military and civilian employees, and an annual budget estimated Defense Message System (DMS) at more than $1 billion. DISA’s core opera- tions include the Global Command and Con- The Defense Message System (DMS) is the trol System, Defense Information System replacement for the AUTODIN system, Network, Defense Message System, Global which was the primary message system for Combat Support System, Defense Informa- the U.S. Department of Defense for more tion Infrastructure Common Operating Envi- than thirty years. ronment, and Information Assurance. The

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Development of the DMS began in 1988 saging in a worldwide system, are defined by with the creation of the Defense Message the X.500 standard of the ITU-T. System Working Group at the direction of Security on the DMS is implemented the assistant secretary of defense for Com- through the use of a FORTEZZA card, the mand, Control, Communications and Intel- user’s private key that will provide access to ligence. The basic requirements for the DMS cryptographic services for the encryption and were extensive and presented a complex decryption of messages. The card was devel- developmental effort in the areas of connec- oped according to specifications and require- tivity and interoperability, guaranteed and ments of the National Security Agency’s timely delivery, confidentiality and security, Multi-level Information System Security Ini- sender authentication, integrity, survivabil- tiative. Each card is prepared for the individ- ity, availability and reliability, ease of use, ual user, and the user is required to identification of recipients, preparation sup- authenticate before accessing the DMS. The port, storage and retrieval support, and dis- card also contains the specific user’s privi- tribution determination and delivery. The leges and what precedence messages he or transition from AUTODIN to the DMS was she can originate. completed on 30 September 2003. Tommy R. Young II The DMS provides a fully integrated, sup- portable, secure, accountable, and completely See also Automatic Digital Network commercial off-the-shelf capability for e-mail (AUTODIN); Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA); E-mail Systems; Interna- and organizational (official) messages for the tional Telecommunication Union (ITU); Department of Defense. The fact that com- National Security Agency (NSA) mercial off-the-shelf capabilities are used ensures that technological advances can be Sources incorporated as they occur for years to come. Department of the Army. “Defense Message Three main components make up the DMS: System (DMS).” [Online information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www the message handling system, directory ser- .redstone.army.mil/documents/dmswhite vices, and a management system. The DMS is .html. not a network, but rather an application sys- Joint Operability Test Command. 2005. “Defense tem. Messages are moved between various Messaging Service (DMS).” [Online informa- parts of the system using existing and tion; retrieved December 2006.] http://jitc .fhu.disa.mil/washops/jtca/dms.html. planned communications networks of the Sheldon, Tom. 2001. The Encyclopedia of Network- Defense Information Systems Network. ing and Telecommunications. New York: The message handling system of DMS is McGraw Hill. defined by the X.400 standard recommended by the International Telecommunication Union–Telecommunication Sector (ITU-T). By mandating X.400 compliance, the Department Defense Switched Network (DSN) of Defense has standardized its mail system and retained the various features and capabil- The Defense Switched Network (DSN) is a ities of commercial e-mail systems. The direc- telephone interconnected network used by tory services, containing addresses, security the Department of Defense and other federal information, and the information required to installations in the United States and over- provide individual and organizational mes- seas. The DSN is the switched circuit

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telecommunications system of the Defense phone) service. The DSN covers the United Information System Network. States and a large portion of the rest of the In 1982, the secretary of defense desig- world. nated the DSN to be the provider of long- The DSN is managed by the Defense Infor- distance communications service for the De - mation Systems Agency (DISA), and its partment of Defense. By 1990, in a series of switched voice service allows calls to be con- planned stages, it had replaced the earlier nected to any DISA location. Its use overseas Automatic Voice Network (AUTOVON) sys- is negotiated country by country. The DSN tem, adding automatic callback, call for- incorporates the former AUTOVON and warding, call transfer, and call waiting classified systems, as well as several other capabilities. DSN was designed to support defense systems here and abroad. command-and-control traffic with the Danny Johnson robustness to provide service under all con- See also Automatic Voice Network (Autovon); ditions. It interfaces with foreign national Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) tactical networks as well as public telephone and administrative private line networks— Sources Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. 1995. Policy for indeed, and where possible, the DSN must the Defense Switched Network. Washington, use commercial links. The DSN was engi- DC: Department of Defense. neered to provide precedence to military Defense Information Systems Agency. “The users, providing them with secure and reli- Defense Switched Network (DSN).” able communications without compromising [Online information; retrieved Decem - the quality of service to others. It is designed ber 2005.] http://www.disa.mil/gs/ dsn/index.html. for the most essential elements of command Department of Defense. 2005. DOD Telecommu- and agency operations requiring long- nications and Defense Switched Network, distance telephone communications. Security Technical Implementation Guide (June The DSN system interface, when added to 30). Washington, DC: Defense Information a private branch exchange, allows dial ser- Systems Agency. Department of Defense Voice Networks. 2004. vice attendants and other users of the system Instruction 8100.3 (16 January). Washington, to enter the military network by dialing an DC: Department of Defense. access code. Users can get assistance on out- going DSN calls by dialing an operator assis- tance code. Calls taking precedence are routed over special trunks and can be routed Defiance, HMS through the network without operator assis- tance. The DSN encompasses inter- and This now-obsolete British Royal Navy sailing intrabase, secure or nonsecure command- vessel was the site of important pioneering and-control telecommunications systems experiments with maritime wireless teleg- that provide end-to-end common use and raphy from 1895 to 1898. dedicated telephone services. DSN services HMS Defiance was originally launched at include traditional long-haul switched voice, Pembroke Dock in 1861 as a full-rigged facsimile, data, and videoconference calling. wooden sailing ship of the line carrying One of the primary responsibilities that DSN ninety-one guns and weighing 5,270 tons. meets is for a nonsecure dial-up voice (tele- She was built at the end of the era of the

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fighting ship powered by sails—indeed, just from various distances and compass bear- the year before the Royal Navy placed HMS ings. These trials extended out more than Warrior in service as the first ironclad screw- 5,000 yards. An October test pushed that dis- driven fighting vessel. Serving with the fleet tance to 6,000 yards when Defiance commu- for a comparatively brief period because of nicated with the Admiral’s House in her rapid obsolescence, Defiance had been Plymouth Harbor. Wireless experiments on laid up for many years when she was recom- Defiance continued through 1898 under the missioned at Devonport in 1884 to become command of another officer. the Royal Navy Torpedo School. Her main At that point, further experiments took masts were removed and her deck was taken place on modern vessels at sea. HMS over by a continuous barrack structure. Defiance had served the purpose of provid- Though in commission, the ship served as a ing a suitable location for the beginnings of stationary training facility. Royal Navy wireless telegraphy—the first From 1895 to 1897, Defiance and the tor- application of radio by any of the world’s pedo school aboard her were commanded by navies. Captain Henry Jackson. He had developed Christopher H. Sterling considerable interest in applications of sci- See also Jackson, Henry B. (1855–1929); Radio; ence to the navy and had become interested United Kingdom: Royal Navy in the possibilities of wireless communica- tion. Unaware of the work of Guglielmo Source Marconi, Jackson began his experiments Pocock, R. F., and G. R. M. Garratt. 1972. The from the decks of Defiance early in 1896, at Origins of Maritime Radio: The Story of the Introduction of Wireless Telegraphy in the Royal first succeeding in sending a wireless signal Navy Between 1896 and 1900. London: Science across the after-cabin of the ship, and then Museum/HMSO. the length of the vessel and ringing a signal bell. This was the first use of wireless aboard any ship. Jackson reported that the wireless signals passed through the wooden bulk- Diego Garcia heads of the ship with no ill effect or loss of power. Diego Garcia is a major American military The next year, Defiance was one of two base in the Indian Ocean. Its development ships Jackson used as he increased the cov- began in the early 1970s as a naval commu- erage of his wireless apparatus. HMS Scourge nications facility. acted as tender for the larger training ship The island was discovered by Portuguese and in early 1897 held Jackson’s wireless explorers in the early 1500s. It is the largest transmitter. Using aerials upward of 70 feet of fifty-two islands that form the Chagos long, Jackson managed to extend his wireless Archipelago in the midst of the Indian reach to 1,200 yards. For officially observed Ocean. A footprint-shaped island just 7 trials of Jackson’s apparatus a few months degrees south of the equator, Diego Garcia later, the receiver was on Defiance while the covers about 11 square miles with an average transmitter was on Scourge. While the former elevation of 4 feet above sea level. The shore- remained at her moorings, Scourge demon- line is about 40 miles long and the island strated wireless telegraphy transmission encloses a lagoon 6.5 miles wide and 13

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miles long. The island is a part of the British completion of a $500 million construction Indian Ocean Territory administered by the program. By the early 2000s, the island’s British Foreign Office. During roughly 170 occupants were all Naval Support Facility years of plantation life, coconut harvests personnel and tenants—most of the approx- dominated life on the island. Colonial work- imately 3,500 people are third-country nation- ers, a native population of 1,200 to 2,000 als working under contract. The NCTS, which members of the Ilois, were moved off the began all this development, continues in island in the late 1960s by the British (they operation, and the Air Force and Army also now live 1,200 miles away on the isle of maintain support elements on the island. Mauritius). U.S. and British government Diego Garcia was the only U.S. Navy base texts refer to them as temporary workers, that launched offensive air operations dur- not indigenous inhabitants. When the pre- ing the Gulf War (1990–1991), and the island sent U.S. lease on the island expires in 2016, played a central role in air attacks during the the Ilois plan to turn the place into a sugar- Afghan and Iraq wars of 2002 to the present cane and fishing enterprise. when the United States built special shelters The U.S. presence began on 23 January for four to six B-2 stealth bombers. 1971 when a naval advance party landed to Christopher H. Sterling survey beach landing areas. Seabees (con- See also Defense Information Systems Agency struction battalions) marked underwater (DISA) obstructions, installed temporary naviga- tional aids, and cleared beach areas for land- Source GlobalSecurity.org. “Diego Garcia ‘Camp ing additional personnel and materials. Two Justice’ 7ß20’S 72ß25’E.” [Online informa- months later construction of the U.S. Naval tion; retrieved September 2005.] http:// Communication Facility Diego Garcia began, www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ including radio transmitter and receiver diego-garcia.htm. buildings and an airfield. The communica- tions facility became the Naval Computer and Telecommunication Station (NCTS) in Dogs October 1991. Its mission is to provide qual- ity assurance evaluation and management of The use of dogs to carry military messages Naval telecommunication facilities; commu- extends at least to Egypt about 4,000 BCE. nications security and Defense Information Plutarch and Pliny mention war dogs, and Systems Agency assets; and tactical and Agesilaus used them in his siege of Mantinea. strategic support to the fleet, national con- Many military commanders, such as Attila sumers, allied forces in the Indian Ocean and Pling (king of the Garamantes), used theater, and all commands and activities on dogs to guard military camps at night. An Diego Garcia. early British war dog authority, E. H. Richard- Facilities were expanded in 1975, 1976, son, reported use of dogs in the American and 1978. Following the overthrow of the Civil War and suggests that this success got Iranian government in 1979, Diego Garcia Germany interested in their use in wartime. saw the most dramatic military buildup of Dogs were active in the Franco-Prussian any location since the Vietnam War era. In (1870–1871) and Russo-Turkish (1877–1878) 1986, it became fully operational with the wars. By the early 1900s, the Germans had

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established many dog training schools. They expanded the use of dogs in military actions to include searching for wounded on the battlefield, sentry duty, scout missions, and as message carriers—a role Richardson belit- tled at the time he wrote about war dogs. Nonetheless, the Imperial German Army used approximately 30,000 dogs during World War I, mostly as sentries and messen- gers. By 1930 Germany had begun to rebuild her military dog strength. A central training school in Frankfurt housed 2,000 dogs. Within ten years, more than 200,000 were trained—mostly German Shepherds—for sentry, scout, and messenger duties. In the 1939 invasion of Poland, these dogs were as ready and well trained as the Luftwaffe. Ger- many used dogs in virtually all of its other World War II campaigns. Some 10,000 to 25,000 dogs were sent by For centuries dogs were used for scouting and Germany to Japan several years before running messages. Here U.S. Marines and their dogs start off for the jungle front lines on Bougainville in Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. These dogs the Solomon Islands in 1943. (National Archives) were retrained in Japan and China to obey Japanese commands and were used in the Malay campaign of 1941–1942. The Russians had trained about 40,000 dogs before Ger- ently no record of their use as messengers in many’s 1941 attack on Russian soil, specializ- World War II. ing in white-coated dogs, which are difficult In August 1918, a U.S. Army field signal to see against a snowy background. battalion used a group of trained messenger Richardson developed a British dog train- dogs over ground that was impassible (usu- ing school before World War I. Dogs were ally because of enemy action) to men. Two trained to return to their handler and to decades later, civilians began Dogs for ignore the loud sounds of battle. British engi- Defense, Inc., which provided the Army K-9 neers developed a small backpack that per- Corps with 30,000 trained, healthy dogs at a mitted a trained dog to lay signal wire for a cost of less than $7.00 each. Many breeds telephone or telegraph, though only over were used and six schools were established. fairly short distances. Alternatively, the con- At the school, set in a tropical location, 150 tainers could hold messages. One drawback Japanese Americans loyal to the United was that British soldiers were often more States wore captured Japanese uniforms and apt to retain the dogs as pets than as messen- served as live targets for war dogs to hunt gers. Though the British restarted a guard and attack. Dogs learned to carry messages, dog training school in 1941, there is appar- string wire, transport two carrier pigeons in a special basket, and (depending on the dog

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species) carry up to thirty pounds of sup- Communications Techniques, chap. 4. Orlando, plies. The most famous Marine Corps dog FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno was Caesar, who landed within the first two Press, 1974). hours of the Bougainville invasion in November 1943. He provided the only mode of communication for the battalion com- Driscoll, Agnes Meyer (1889–1971) mand post until telephone line was laid. After installation, the line was damaged and A senior cryptanalyst for the U.S. Navy in Caesar took over again. He was credited the 1920s and 1930s, Agnes Driscoll also de- with nine runs carrying messages, overlays, signed cryptographic systems for the Navy. and captured Japanese papers—doing so Agnes Driscoll (born Meyer) was born in more than three times under fire. Genesco, Illinois, on 24 July 1889, and grad- The primary value of dogs—in addition to uated from Ohio State University in 1911. their speed and endurance—is their acute After several years of teaching in Texas, she senses of smell and hearing and superior joined the U.S. Navy as a chief yeoman in night vision, all of which assisted in getting 1918 and worked in censorship in Washing- messages through. The average dog’s sense ton DC. After World War I, Driscoll was of smell is 50 to 100 times better than a assigned to the Code and Signal Section for human’s, and a dog can remember specific the Navy’s director of Naval Communica- smells and detect one from another with tions. In 1919 she was discharged but re - ease. Dogs can hear up to 35,000 cycles per mained as a civilian code clerk. second (humans hear only 20,000 at best). Over the next few years, she moved Dogs with ears that stand up hear better through a number of positions. In early 1920, than floppy-eared breeds. While dogs are she trained with the Department of Ciphers nearsighted and thus do not see as well as at George Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratory humans, the fact that their eyes contain more and then spent about three months at Her- rods than cones allows them to see better in bert Yardley’s Black Chamber in New York dim light. City. She spent two years developing crypto- David L. Woods graphic systems for the Navy—one of See also Horses and Mules; Pigeons which, the “CM” (or code machine), became the main naval cryptographic system for the Sources next decade. In 1923, Edward Hebern hired Going, Clayton G. 1944. Dogs at War. New York: her to help develop a cipher wheel coding Macmillan. device. She married Michael Driscoll the Hamer, Blythe. 2001. Dogs at War. London: Carlton. next year. Harfield, Alan. 1989. “Messenger Dogs.” With Driscoll’s return to the Navy in 1924, In Pigeon to Packhorse: The Illustrated Story naval cryptologic activity coalesced around of Animals in Army Communications, the newly formed Research Desk where she 83–89. Chippenham, UK: Picton worked under Laurance Safford. One of her Publishing. Richardson, E. H. 1910. War, Police, and Watch duties was to train future naval cryptologists; Dogs. Edinburgh: William Blackwood. such officers as Joseph Rochefort and Joseph Woods, David L. 1965. “Messengers: Men, Wenger graduated from this program. The Horses, and Dogs,” In A History of Tactical operation’s first major success was to break

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the Japanese navy’s operational/ adminis- British experts and persisted in a fruitless trative code known as Red to the Americans. search for a solution. Eventually, she was A copy had been stolen by naval intelligence, transferred to work new Japanese systems. and she broke the overlaying transposition After the war Driscoll worked on the cipher in 1926. For the next four years, intel- Soviet espionage cipher known as Venona, ligence from this breakthrough allowed but with no success, at the same time helping Americans to follow Japanese technical to integrate machine technology into naval naval advances and tactics. cryptology. She transferred to the new U.S. In 1930 the Japanese replaced Red with a cryptologic organizations: the Armed Forces new code, called Blue by the Americans. Security Agency in 1949 and the National Driscoll broke this code, which contained Security Agency in 1952. She retired in 1958, 85,000 values further encrypted with a trans- largely forgotten. She died on 16 September position cipher. Because she had no code- 1971 and was buried in Arlington National book to work from, Safford considered this Cemetery. feat the equal of the Army’s later break- Robert Hanyok through against Purple. This project also See also Enigma; National Security Agency entailed the first substantial use of early (NSA); Safford, Laurance F. (1890–1973); machine technology (such as card sorters) in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Yardley, cryptanalysis. In 1935 Driscoll demonstrated Herbert O. (1889–1958) her virtuosity by breaking the M-1 cipher Sources machine, called Orange, used by Japan’s DeBrose, Jim, and Colin Burke. 2004. The Secret naval attachés, and similar to the diplomats’ in Building 26. New York: Random House. Red machine. Hanyok, Robert. 1997. “Still Desperately In 1939, Safford set her to crack the Japan- Seeking ‘Miss Agnes’: A Pioneer Cryptolo- ese navy’s new general purpose code, even- gist’s Life Remains an Enigma.” Cryptolog (Fall). tually called JN-25. This system used 30,000 Lujan, Susan. 1998. “Agnes Meyer Driscoll.” five-figure code groups encrypted with addi- In Selections from Cryptologia: History, People, tives from another 300-page book. By 1940, and Technology, edited by Cipher Deavours she had stripped away these encrypted val- et al., 269–278. Norwood, MA: Artech ues. Safford soon put her in charge of the House. National Security Agency Central Security U.S. Navy’s project to break the German Service. “Hall of Honor: Agnes Meyer navy’s Enigma coding system. For more Driscoll, 1889–1971.” [Online information; than two years her team made little headway retrieved August 2006.] http://www.nsa as she had resisted the advice of visiting .gov/honor/honor00024.cfm.

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Eastern Europe signal corps was established when the social- ist republic came into existence. The several nations of central and eastern When the country divided into the Czech Europe experienced varied signaling histo- and Slovak republics in 1993, each nation ries. Many began early military use of teleg- formed its own signal corps. raphy in the nineteenth century. They became ravaged battlefields in both world Poland wars and later were a part of the Soviet-led The first Polish signal units were created in Warsaw Pact (from 1955 to 1991) before November 1918 at Warsaw Citadel, Krakow, regaining their independence. A number and Lwow. After the outbreak of the joined the European Union and the North Wielkopolskie Uprising on 27 December Atlantic Treaty Organization by the early 1918, signal units were staffed by Polish 2000s. reserve officers who had seen service in the German army Signal Corps (Nachrichten- Czechoslovakia truppe). The Polish General Staff in Warsaw The first Czechoslovakian signal unit was included a signal section and the inspec- formed at Fort Josefov in November 1918. It torate of the newly formed Polish Signal was a telegraph battalion, redesignated as a Corps (Wojska Lacznosci). By 1919 the corps regiment two years later. During the autumn included the following units: the general of 1920, the Central Telegraph School was staff sections just noted; two telegraph, one formed, renamed the Military Telegraph telephone, and one radio battalion at the School in 1921. From 1924, telegraph battal- Warsaw Citadel; a signal regiment in Zegrze; ions once again became the fundamental sig- and two wireless companies, a fixed wireless nal units and by 1939 there were seven of station, and a telegraph battalion in Poznan. them. The country was occupied by Germany These and additional units fought during from 1939 to 1945. After the end of hostilities, the Polish-Russian War in 1920 and served special liaison battalions were created. A new again from 1921 to 1924. New units operated

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in Zegrze (a signal training center), signal lish an independent telegraph company. On regiments in both Jaroslaw and Grudziadz, 19 October 1877 the four telegraph sections and telegraph battalions in both Jaroslaw from the Engineers Battalion were combined and Poznan. into a telegraph company. Divisional signal companies and brigade By 1909 the signals operation comprised signal squadrons (cavalry) had thirty tele- sections for wireless, motor cars and motor- graph signal companies by 1930, and ten cycles, pigeons, and photography. On the cavalry signal squadrons were formed by eve of World War I it had added an “aerosta- 1935 from cavalry signal troops. Officer sig- tion” (flying) company as well as an aircraft nal training schools were formed at Zegrze, training and technical school. A special and a signal and engineering school was duties company was responsible for the raised in Warsaw. preparation of wireless operators, signalers, The Polish army fought against the Ger- and liaison agents. Only in 1949 did the sig- man invasion in September 1939, and émigrés nal troops of the then socialist republic also fought in France in May and June 1940. became an independent corps. These included the Gdanski signal battalion Cliff Lord (1 Grenadier Division), the Podhalanska See also Baltic Nations; Germany: Army; Polish brigade signal company, and the mechanized Code Breaking; Russia/Soviet Union: Army; cavalry brigade signal squadron. After the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) fall of France (June 1940) a number of Polish signal units were formed in Scotland between Sources 1940 and 1945. Several Polish signals units Contribii la Istoria Trupelor de Transmisiuni din Armata Romana. 1973. Rome: Editura also served with the 11 Polish Corps in the Militara. Italian theater. The Polish General Staff in Rogozinski, Antoni. 1985. Wojska Lacznosci I London had a signal unit and a wireless teleg- Polska Dywizja Pancerna. Milwaukee, WI: raphy company. After 1945 the Polish army in Antoni Rogozinski. the West was disbanded and a new army formed with Russian assistance made up of Polish forces that had served in the East. Edelcrantz, Abraham (1754–1821)

Romania Swedish scholar Abraham Niklas Clewberg Line telegraphy was first introduced into the Edelcrantz invented the first Swedish data Romanian army in 1863 when the Post & communication system, an optical telegraph Telegraph Administration was provided network. His telegraph acquired great mili- with campaign telegraph sets. A telegraph tary significance in the wake of the French section in the Miners Company of the Engi- Revolution and the rise of the Napoleonic neers Battalion was established on 14 July Wars. During the first half of the nineteenth 1873 and is considered to be the birth of century, Sweden operated Europe’s second Romanian army signals. With the experi- largest telegraph system, exceeded only by ence gained on the battlefield by army sig- that of the French. To reward him for his nalers and the success of communications accomplishments, the Swedish king elevated (including, according to some reports, the him to the nobility. first military use of the telephone) in the bat- Edelcrantz was born on 28 July 1754 in tle of Plevna (1877), it was decided to estab- Åbo, Sweden. He was the son of Carl Abra-

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ham Clewberg, a professor of ancient lan- after peace with Russia, the system fell into guages at the Royal Academy of Åbo. Edel- decline. In the 1830s, however, the tense crantz attended the University of Turku and political system in Europe convinced the in 1772 wrote his first doctoral thesis on Swedish government to reinvigorate the sys- optics. In 1773, he wrote a second thesis on tem to protect the Swedish coastline. The literature. He was a member of the Swedish Swedish optical telegraph system was only Academy from 1786 until his death in Åbo discontinued in 1881 when it was replaced on 15 March 1821. by the electric telegraph. After reading an article in the September Michael R. Hall 1794 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine about See also Chappe, Claude (1763–1805); French telegraph inventor Claude Chappe, Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815); Semaphore he immediately began the construction of a (Mechanical Telegraphs) Swedish telegraph system. Within two months, he was able to replicate Chappe’s Sources design, which utilized articulated arms and Holzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson. 1995. The Early History of Data Networks. Los flaps. On 1 November 1794, he sent the first Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Swedish telegraph message to King Gustav Press. IV. By early 1795, Edelcrantz had switched Nickles, David Paul. 2003. Under the Wire: How from Chappe’s design to a shutter telegraph the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. Cambridge, system, which had also been developed by MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. The Old Telegraphs. Chappe (in 1791) but abandoned. Ironically, Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. there is no indication that Edelcrantz knew of Chappe’s earlier design nor is there any indi- cation in Edelcrantz’s extensive writings why Edelcrantz rejected Chappe’s semaphoric Edison, Thomas A. (1847–1931) arms and utilized shutters. Significantly, both designs were successful. The Swedish system, Thomas Alva Edison was perhaps the most however, was twice as fast as the French. important American inventor in the nine- Unfortunately, bad weather (and thus poor teenth century. He received more than a visibility) inhibited the use of both. thousand patents, more than any other indi- The shutter telegraph was a matrix of ten vidual, and many had military applications. iron shutters positioned on fifty towers that Edison was born on 11 February 1847 in were approximately six miles apart. The Milan, Ohio. He had little formal education position of the shutters formed combinations but possessed a gifted mind, a visual imag- of numbers that translated into letters and ination, and unusual powers of reasoning. words, which were recorded in codebooks. While working as a railway newsboy he The shutters could be seen by telescope from spent his free time reading scientific books. the next tower, where operators would Edison learned how to operate a telegraph immediately replicate the signals. Driven by and was a full-time telegrapher for several the fear of a French invasion during the years. He eventually made his way to Boston Napoleonic Wars, the shutter system spread in 1868 where, after reading the works of rapidly throughout Sweden. When war Michael Faraday, he became an inventor. broke out against Russia in 1808, the system Edison moved to New York in 1869 and was greatly expanded. Nevertheless, in 1809, continued to work on inventions related to

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the telegraph. His first successful invention, an to perfecting the phonograph, making it a improved stock ticker, earned him $40,000 (a practical entertainment medium for the early tidy sum in those days), with which he estab- recording industry. Edison also worked to lished his first research laboratory in Newark, perfect the concept of motion pictures, New Jersey, in 1871. There he developed sev- demonstrating a camera in 1891. He soon eral devices that improved the speed and effi- began commercial production of “movies” ciency of the telegraph, among them the for another new entertainment business. One duplex telegraph, which could send two mes- of his final projects focused on development sages over the same wire at the same time. He of a better storage battery for use in electric soon expanded that idea into the quadruplex vehicles, which Edison thought was the best and later multiplex, which enabled increased method of powering cars. The alkaline stor- capacity, simultaneous multidirectional capa- age battery eventually became his most prof- bility, and faster transmission of telegraphic itable product, paving the way for the messages. All of these became important mil- modern alkaline battery. itary communication tools. By the early twentieth century Edison had In 1876 Edison moved to Menlo Park, become a cultural icon, a symbol of Ameri- New Jersey, and established a larger labora- can ingenuity. For a lifetime of achievement tory designed for a broader program of he was recognized in 1928 with a special multidisciplinary research leading to manu- Medal of Honor from Congress. Edison died facture of any resulting products. At the on 18 October 1931 in West Orange, New same time Alexander Graham Bell was Jersey, as the most productive inventor in working on improvements to his new tele- U.S. history—his record of 1,093 individual phone; and Western Union asked Edison to patents has never been surpassed. develop a competitive system. Widely per- Steven J. Rauch ceived as a scientific soldier of fortune who evaded the patents of others, Edison devel- See also Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922); Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937); Morse, oped a carbon button transmitter that greatly Samuel F. B. (1791–1872; Tesla, Nikola (1856– improved the volume and clarity of voice 1943) signals, allowing the telephone to become commercially practical. Edison’s carbon Sources transmitter was later used in early micro- Israel, Paul. 1998. Edison: A Life of Invention. phones for sound motion pictures and radio New York: John Wiley. broadcasting. Millard, Andre. 1990. Edison and the Business of Innovation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer- Edison then undertook development of a sity Press. practical incandescent electric light as well as Wachhorst, Wyn. 1981. Thomas Alva Edison: an electrical system that made the new light An American Myth. Cambridge, MA: MIT practical, safe, and economical. In 1887 Edi- Press. son moved to West Orange, New Jersey, and established his final laboratory complex, which allowed his team to work on ten or Egypt twenty projects at once. In the late 1890s, frus- trated by competing interests in communica- With a military history tracing back thou- tions and lighting endeavors, Edison turned sands of years, Egypt has nearly always been

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a power to reckon with in the Middle East. manders had been reluctant to extend oper- Over the past half-century or so, it has ational flexibility to brigade and battalion received aid from a variety of nations, commanders—a failure poor communica- depending on its role in the Cold War. In tions did not help. Even though the Egyptian the early 2000s, Egypt was a military and military became oriented toward the West strategic partner of the North Atlantic Treaty after the October 1973 war with Israel, it Organization, the strongest military power retained large amounts of Soviet equipment in Africa, and the second largest in the Mid- (including communications) in its inventory dle East (after Israel). for some years. From late in the nineteenth century After Egypt and Israel signed their peace through World War II, Britain maintained a treaty in 1979, the United States strove to strong influence in the Egyptian military, increase deliveries of armaments, advice, and providing it with equipment, instruction, support to Egypt and to provide the country and technicians. An Egyptian army signal with American military training. With the school was established in 1915. Under the exception of Israel, Egypt became the largest terms of a 1936 treaty, British troops re- recipient of U.S. military aid after 1980. Its mained in the country to defend the Suez stock of weaponry and communications Canal. In 1937 the Egyptian Signal Corps equipment from all sources still did not reach became an independent organization, and a the level of Israel’s. Equipment from the for- training center for signalers and noncom- mer Soviet Union has been largely replaced missioned officers was formed a year later. In by more modern American, French, and 1939 the first operational signal unit was British equipment, a significant portion of formed, followed by many more during which is built under license in Egypt. World War II. During the war, Egypt became The 1990–1991 Gulf War, in which Iraqi the principal Allied base in the Middle East. equipment, several generations newer than An armored signal unit was formed in 1950. Egypt’s Soviet equipment, was badly out- Since the military coup in 1952, career mil- classed by Western types, convinced the itary officers have figured prominently in Egyptian military that it must devote more Egypt’s government, and senior officers effort to replacement than upgrading of old have played an influential role in Egypt’s equipment. The Egyptian Air Defense Force affairs. The military’s involvement in gov- (ADF) made progress developing a national ernment has diminished since the 1970s, air defense network that would integrate all although ranking members of the officer existing radars, missile batteries, air bases, corps have continued to fill the positions of and command centers into an automated minister of defense (concurrently serving as command-and-control system. ADF planned commander in chief of the armed forces) and to link the system to the Hawkeye early- minister of the interior. warning aircraft. During each of the several wars with Israel By the late 1990s, many indications pointed before 1975, the Egyptian army demon- to a comprehensive Egyptian effort to create a strated weaknesses in command, control, national information infrastructure that would and communications. Under the influence serve both military and civilian needs. The of Soviet military doctrine and advice (dom- zeal with which Egypt is approaching its infor- inant after about 1955), higher-level com- mation project reflects a solid understanding

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of the relationship between information tech- The ECM Mark II built on and improved nology and national security. The Internet is the rotor machine concept developed origi- perceived as a tool of dual use serving both nally by Edward Hebern early in the twen- civilian and military needs. tieth century. That led to the Electric Cipher By the twenty-first century, the Egyptian Machine (ECM) Mark I, a five-rotor system air arm was completing a long process of developed by the Navy in the early 1930s. transformation to Western systems and tech- Development of what would become the nologies. It had procured various modern sys- Mark II or SIGABA device began in the mid- tems, such as aircraft; attack helicopters; 1930s with innovation of the “stepping air-to-air and air-to-ground guided munitions; maze” principle (using some rotors to con- command, control, communications, com- trol the movement of others) by William puter, and information systems; early warning Friedman and Frank Rowlett, then working systems; and electronic warfare systems. for U.S. Army intelligence. Within a year or Christopher H. Sterling and Cliff Lord two Navy researchers (who had more fund- See also Ancient Signals; Gulf War (1990–1991); ing) were working to perfect the device with Israel; Suez Crisis (1956) electronic control. The most important differ- ence between previous machines and the Sources ECM was how the enciphering rotors were Frisch, Hillel. 2001. “Guns and Butter in the Egyptian Army.” [Online article; retrieved stepped. The stepping maze used rotors in April 2006.] http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/ cascade formation to produce a more ran- 2001/issue2/jv5n2a1.html. dom stepping of the ECM’s up to ten cipher Sobelman, Ariel T. 1998. “An Information and five control rotors than existed on previ- Revolution in the Middle East?” [Online ous electromechanical cipher machines such article; retrieved April 2006.] http://www as the German Enigma. The keyboard on the .tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v1n2p4_n.html. Tartter, Jean R. 1990. “The Military.” In A SIGABA had a row of digits like the key- Country Study: Egypt, chap. 5. Washington, board on a regular typewriter. DC: Library of Congress. The machine, easily a generation ahead of any other then in use in the world, became operational with both the Army and Navy Electric Cipher Machine (ECM on 1 August 1941. Within two years, more Mark II, “SIGABA”) than 10,000 of the devices were in use. They cost more than $2,000 each. They could send The ECM Mark II (also known as the Navy at 45 to 50 words per minute when keyed CSP-888/889 or Army Converter M-134C– (operated) by trained personnel. But the SIGABA, a handy code name that masked SIGABA was a large and heavy device that the equipment’s identity) was the chief was mechanically complex and fragile. In American cipher machine used during that sense it was not as practical a piece of World War II. A high-grade, electromechan- equipment as the Enigma, which was both ical, rotor wheel cipher device, it was appar- smaller and lighter. SIGABA was widely ently never broken by enemy forces. It used aboard U.S. Navy ships but was rarely remained in use in modified form through used in the field. the 1950s before being replaced with more Given their centrality to American military modern equipment. communications throughout the war, the

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Officially the Electric Cipher Machine (ECM), the complex SIGABA became the mainstay American ciphering device used in World War II. Its signals were never broken by Axis enemy forces. (National Security Agency)

SIGABAs’ security was closely guarded. On The SIGABA was adapted for interopera- 26 June 1942 the Army and Navy agreed not tion with a modified British machine, Typex, to allow the devices to be placed in foreign itself originally based on the Enigma, which territory except where armed American per- had first been used in 1937. The common sonnel were able to properly safeguard the machine (though neither an ECM nor a machine. The SIGABA would only be made Typex) was known as the Combined Cipher available to Allies if an American liaison offi- Machine (CCM) and was used beginning in cer prevented allied personnel from direct November 1943 for messages between access to the machine or its operation. Of American and British forces. The U.S. State specific concern were such SIGABA details Department also made use of the CCM as its rotors and wiring, or keying or operat- device for many years. ing instructions. Detailed instructions on After newer, faster cryptographic systems how to rapidly destroy threatened machines replaced the SIGABA (and computers made were issued to all forces. it possible to break their complex codes,

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which had resisted mechanical methods), thing within line of sight of the explosion epi- the machines were systematically destroyed center. The electric and magnetic fields might to protect their design secrets and only a few couple with electrical and electronic systems survive. The National Cryptologic Museum producing severely damaging current and has at least three and the U.S. Naval Security voltage surges. In effect, these systems on Group has two. Some of the controlling land, sea, and air may be paralyzed and irre- patents were not made public until 2001. versibly broken. The ionized air might also Christopher H. Sterling disrupt radio traffic and radar signals causing See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code, serious communication problems. High radio Codebook; Code Breaking; Enigma; frequencies could be disrupted over large dis- Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); Magic; tances for minutes up to an hour depending Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); Safford, on the given environment. Laurance F. (1890–1973); Signals Intelligence Commercial electrical networks could (SIGINT); Ultra serve as huge EMP antennas, which would Sources cause more severe effects than those of light- Andleman, D., and J. Reeds. 1982. “On ning strikes by destroying any equipment Cryptanalysis of Rotor Machines and connected to electrical cables. When a semi- Sub stitution-Permutation Networks.” IEEE conductive device absorbs EMP energy, it is Transactions on Information Theory IT-28 (4): not able to displace the heat quickly enough. 578–584. Deavours, Cipher, and Louis Kruh. 1985. “Billy The semiconductor heats up to tempera- Friedman and the Electric Super-Code tures near the melting point, which leads Machine.” In Machine Cryptography and to thermal device failure. Modern very- Modern Cryptanalysis, 35–92. Dedham, MA: large-scale integrated chips are extremely Artech House. sensitive to any changes in voltage and Lee, Michael. 2003. “Cryptanalysis of the SIGABA.” Master’s thesis, University of would be destroyed by EMP. Particularly California, Santa Barbara. vulnerable are computers and radio or radar Pekelney, Richard S. 2006. “Electric Cipher receivers. Commercial computers are espe- Machine (ECM) Mark II.” [Online article; cially susceptible as they are largely built of retrieved March 2006.] http://www high-density metal oxide semiconductor .maritime.org/ecm2.htm. devices, which are extremely sensitive to Savard, John J. G., and Richard S. Pekelney. 1999. “The ECM Mark II: Design, History exposure to high-voltage transients. It has and Cryptology,. Cryptologia 23 (July): been estimated that a single high-altitude 211–228. nuclear detonation 200 miles above Kansas could produce an EMP encompassing the entire United States. Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) The design of military equipment is gener- ally supposed to make it resistant to EMP, One of the effects of a high-altitude nuclear although any realistic experiments or simula- explosion is a very short (hundreds of tions are very difficult to conduct. Therefore, nanoseconds) but intense and widespread the effects for military command, control, and blast of electromagnetic radiation. Gamma communications devices and systems cannot rays interact with the atmosphere to produce be fully predicted. Radar and electronic a radio frequency wave that covers every- equipment, satellites, microwave, ultra-high

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frequency, very high frequency, high fre- effectiveness and even functioning could be quency, and low band communication sys- dramatically reduced by an EMP device. tems as well as television equipment are Computer-based communication systems of potentially exposed to EMP damage. modern army operations are extremely vul- The origins of the idea of using a nuclear nerable and could be rendered unusable by burst to paralyze and destroy electrical, elec- an EMP attack. Such an occurrence would tronic, and communication systems of the have a vital effect on war-fighting capabilities. enemy can be traced back to the U.S. hydro- Łukasz Kamie ski gen bomb test explosion in July 1962, code See also Communications Security (COMSEC); named Starfish Prime. The bomb was deto- Computer; Information Revolution in nated in the Pacific Ocean 800 miles away Military Affairs (IRMA); Jamming; from Hawaii. The blast generated an EMP Microwave; Radio; Spectrum Frequencies that not only caused street lights to go dark and triggered burglar alarms but also blocked Sources Foster, John S., Jr., et al. 2004. Report of the radio communication and damaged electrical Commission to Assess the Threat to the United devices throughout Hawaii. Two years earlier, States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. a Soviet hydrogen bomb detonation over U.S. House of Representatives Armed Siberia had a similar unexpected effect of Services Committee Executive Report, Vol. 1. knocking out communication systems. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Nonnuclear means can also produce EMP Kopp, Carlo. 1996. “The Electromagnetic that would be even greater than that gener- Bomb—A Weapon of Electrical Mass ated by a nuclear explosion. A conventional Destruction.” In Information Warfare— electromagnetic bomb (E-bomb) is a weapon Cyberterrorism: Protecting Your Personal designed to render inoperative electronics on Security in the Electronic Age, edited by a wide scale with an EMP. This kind of Winn Schwartau, 296–333. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. weapon is highly classified and secret. The Riddle, Thomas C. 2004. “Nuclear High United States and Russia are known to possess Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse—Implica- the technology for designing and producing tions for Homeland Security and Homeland such a weapon. The military aside, the whole Defense.” In A Nation at War in an Era of idea inspires popular moviemakers—for Strategic Change, edited by Williamson Murray, 69–93. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies example, E-bombs are used in The Matrix Institute. (1999)—and cyberpunk science fiction, where Spencer, Jack. 2004. “The Electromagnetic Pulse EMP be comes a “superweapon” destroying Commission Warns of an Old Threat with a the infrastructure core of technologically New Face.” Backgrounder, No. 1784. Washing- advanced societies. The EMP could be a dev- ton, DC: The Heritage Foundation. astating means of asymmetric warfare. Communication and information needs of twenty-first-century military operations Electronic Countermeasures/ require undisrupted flows of information. Electronic Warfare (ECM/EW) Modern military platforms developed under the notion of the Information Revolution in The terms “electronic countermeasures” Military Affairs are densely packed with (ECM) and “electronic warfare” (EW) refer electronics, and unless well hardened, their to a large family of technologies that support

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the interception of enemy signals, jamming of instructions to Luftwaffe fighter pilots. The those signals (or antijamming, meaning group’s aircraft were thus able to throw out defense from their jamming efforts), and a protective electronic “cloak” to help con- deception—of any acoustic, optical, radar, or ceal the attack. radio communication signals. Put another Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack in way, electronic warfare means military action December 1941, the U.S. Navy established a involving the use of electromagnetic energy to radio countermeasures research operation determine, exploit, reduce, or prevent hostile in Cambridge, Massachusetts, under Freder- use of the electromagnetic spectrum. ick Terman. Over several years it developed Generally speaking, the first use of what devices used during World War II against the would later be termed ECM dates to the Japanese and Germans. It also marked the early years of the twentieth century and beginning of a close working relationship involved the jamming of opponents’ radio between the military and academic scien- signals during U.S. naval exercises. Attempts tists. During the war, Air Force bombers flew to jam enemy wireless were widespread dur- “ferret” missions to pick up the electronic ing World War I naval actions. Between the signatures of enemy radar installations so wars, much attention (in Britain, the United they could later be targeted for destruction. States, and Germany) was paid to the devel- ECM aircraft flew on most missions over opment of radar—and how to protect Japan to confuse their air defense communi- against electronic or physical attacks on such cations and radar. facilities. The first widespread use of ECM In the long Cold War, Air Force and Navy activity began during World War II. bombers (and later U-2 reconnaissance air- During the mid-1940 Battle of Britain, suc- craft) flew electronics intelligence (ELINT) cessful ECM efforts sought to disrupt Ger- missions along the borders of the Soviet man Luftwaffe navigational radio beams. Union seeking information on communica- Captured aircraft gave away the frequencies tion networks and radar installations. Such being used. The British often jammed Ger- ECM/EW efforts were strongly aided by the man radio traffic—when not monitoring it solid state electronics revolution after 1960. for signals intelligence purposes. Facing Growing use of increasingly capable com- huge losses of aircraft and crews, in Novem- puters, large-scale integration of components ber 1943, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) to make ever-smaller devices, laser-guided established 100 Group to be responsible for weapons systems, ELINT communication all electronic and radio countermeasures. satellites, and effective remote control made Some group aircraft carried jamming equip- ECM/EW possible in all types of vehicles, ment and flew with the bomber stream; oth- some of them unmanned drones. ers flew separate missions creating false Deception has always been one element of radar echoes of spoof and decoy raids by ECM/EW efforts. During the Six Day War in nonexistent “ghost” squadrons dropping tin- 1967, for example, Israeli radio operators foil (“window”) to deflect enemy radar and speaking fluent Egyptian Arabic were able to other devices. Their radio transmitters also cause havoc with Egyptian fighters and air jammed German early warning radar and control. Similar efforts were made by Amer- fighter control communications. A German- ican forces in the Gulf and Iraq wars. speaking RAF crew member would operate Another kind of ECM/EW is more offen- the jamming equipment and give false sive as it involves using an electromagnetic

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pulse (EMP) to overpower or burn out elec- Robb, Stephen C. 1990. “Marine Corps Electronic tronic devices. This can be used to destroy an Warfare—A Combat Power Multiplier.” enemy’s ability to communicate (though [Online article; retrieved March 2006.] http:// www.globalsecurity. org military/library/ nowadays many communication centers, report/1990/RSC.htm. mobile and fixed, are protected—”hard- ened”—against EMP strikes). EMP can also be a very good psychological weapon as it E-Mail Systems can render all consumer electronics devices and computers useless. Since the 1990s, American military services Countermeasures to defeat enemy ECM/ (and those of most other nations) have devel- EW efforts are extensive. Sometimes called oped increasingly sophisticated systems of “counter counter” measures, these include a electronic mail (e-mail) for both tactical and menu of techniques to overcome the poten- strategic needs as well as individual commu- tial damage of enemy efforts. For example, nication. The Defense Message Service frequency hopping is one often effective way (DMS) was giving way to the improved Mil- of escaping jamming efforts as it forces the itary Message Handling System (MMHS) adversary to expend huge sums of money around 2005. for transmitters covering a wide band of The DMS was created by the Defense Infor- frequencies. mation Systems Agency for defense and The Association of Old Crows keeps EW related agencies. Begun with testing in 1995, veterans in touch and has published a three- the DMS was designed as a flexible, commer- volume history of the field. During World cial off-the-shelf (COTS)–based application War II, operators of ECM equipment were providing multimedia messaging and direc- often called ravens, or later, crows. tory services using the underlying Defense Christopher H. Sterling Information Infrastructure network and secu- rity services. The DMS provided electronic See also Association of Old Crows (AOC); message service to all U.S. Department of Britain, Battle of (1940); Communications Defense (DoD) users (including deployed tac- Security (COMSEC); Deception; Intelligence Ships; Jamming; Laser; Meteor Burst tical users) and interfaced with other U.S. Communications (MBC); National Defense government agencies, allied forces, and Research Committee (NDRC); Naval defense contractors. The DMS offered two Research Laboratory (NRL); Radio Silence; levels of service: High grade provided orga- Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Solid State nizational messaging/record traffic and Electronics replaced incompatible, unsecured e-mail sys- tems. Medium grade was a protected messag- Sources Dickson, Paul. 1976, The Electronic Battlefield. ing capability for individuals and utilized Bloomington: Indiana University Press. COTS e-mail products administered as stan- Gebhard, Louis A. 1979. “Electronic Counter- dard network applications across DoD. measures.” In Evolution of Naval Radio- Despite its bandwidth and computer Electronics and Contributions of the Naval equipment requirements, the DMS was Research Laboratory, 299–342. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. installed worldwide. It replaced the earlier Price, Alfred. 1984, 1989, 2001. The History of Automatic Digital Network and about forty U.S. Electronic Warfare. 3 vols. Alexandria, other individual e-mail systems. It is, in VA: Association of Old Crows. turn, being replaced by the MMHS, which

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is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Source standard and offers more sophisticated Defense Information Systems Agency. 2005. user identification and security. Both the “Defense Message System (DMS).” [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] http:// National Gateway System and the Pentagon www.disa.mil/main/prodsol/dms.html. Telecommunications System Center provide defense agencies with a continuing capabil- ity to satisfy electronic messaging require- Enigma ments, allied and tactical interoperability, and emergency action message dissemina- The Enigma was a multirotor cipher tion. Security and delivery assurance mech- machine widely used by all military forces anisms are approved (or developed) by the and most government agencies in Nazi Ger- National Security Agency for information many before and during World War II. The classified at all levels, including top secret. breaking of many of its messages by the By the early 2000s, all branches of the U.S. Allies shortened the war by revealing Ger- military offered some sort of e-mail access to man plans. individual servicemen and servicewomen. The Enigma device originated with Arthur In larger installations, personnel have access Scherbius (1878–1929), an electrical engineer to high-speed connections. But in smaller who worked for German and Swiss electrical outposts Internet connections are made firms before setting up his own company. In through satellite linkups and may be limited the early 1920s, he developed (and named) to a very few computers. American forces in the Enigma rotor cipher machine, designed the Middle East found e-mail a vastly for commercial (nonsecret) codes. The key improved means of keeping in touch with part of the instrument was its four Bakelite home than earlier “snail” mail and expensive (later metal) rotors, which were electrically telephone links. Any use of e-mail, of course, interconnected to create the coding effect. prompts unique security risks. Though mil- The first model of the machine was exhibited itary officials believe that the instantaneous at a 1923 postal conference in Bern and interaction e-mail provides to soldiers in showed a standard typewriter keyboard. It remote locations helps to improve morale in was both heavy and bulky and was mounted the field and at home, many worry that there in a wooden case. Though he offered the could be inadvertent leaks of sensitive infor- device to the German navy and the Weimar mation from the battlefield. Soldiers in all Republic’s foreign office, neither was then branches have been instructed not to send interested. In 1923 he sold rights to the certain types of information over the Inter- machine to another company, which aggres- net, but policies are generally left up to divi- sively marketed a series of four improved sion and unit commanders. models, though with only limited results Christopher H. Sterling despite favorable publicity and several gov- ernment purchasers. See also Automatic Digital Network In 1926 German naval intelligence began (AUTODIN); Defense Information Systems utilizing an Enigma coding machine, modi- Agency (DISA); Defense Message System (DMS); Global Information Grid (GIG); fied from one it had purchased from domestic Internet; National Security Agency (NSA); commercial sources. The Italian navy also Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) purchased some Enigma machines. The Ger- man army soon followed suit, making fur-

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with their machines. Settings were changed every few months. The number of plugs available increased before and during the war, adding to the machine’s security. In 1938, the German army and air force began to require operators to make their own machine settings while the navy retained a standard service approach. During the war, rotor and/or plug settings were changed daily, and sometimes several times in a given day. Two or three people were needed to operate the device in the field. Some 30,000 Enigma machines of various models were used during the war—more than any other cipher machine by any nation. While this allowed for a standard training practice, it also made it harder to change methods or equipment and made code breaking easier due to the number of messages sent. Perhaps 200 German codes were employed prior to and during World An Enigma cipher machine, used by the German War II, and not all of them were broken. The military in World War II to encrypt communications, was the first target of Bletchley Park code breakers. It Germans did not believe that their codes combined the use of rotors and plugboards to increase could be compromised, and consequently, the permutations of its signals. (Hulton/Getty Images) the high standards set for their signal staff and security procedures were sometimes relaxed. This contributed to a number of code-breaking breakthroughs for the British ther modifications to its three-rotor machines. and Americans. By 1930 the military versions differed sub- The Germans developed several more stantially from those still on the commercial sophisticated cipher machines for specific market, chiefly by the addition of a plugboard uses. Each was given an Allied “fish” code (stecker) in the front of the device, allowing a name. The role of all of these machines huge increase in the number of code permu- remained secret for three decades after the tations that could be transmitted. Indeed, the war as thousands of Enigmas had survived machine was now considered by its users to and were given to other governments— be unbreakable. This improved version was without any notion that the British could first used by the German navy in October read their communications. Examples of 1934 and the reconstituted Luftwaffe in most of the Enigma and other cipher August 1935. By 1938, additional rotors were machines can today be found in museums. made available, hugely increasing the diffi- Christopher H. Sterling culty of decoding the machine. By 1939, for See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code, example, naval operators could select three Codebook; Code Breaking; German “Fish” operating rotors from among eight that came Codes; Germany: Air Force; Germany:

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Army; Germany: Naval Intelligence at Balaclava and French headquarters in (B-Dienst); Germany: Navy; Nebraska Kamiesch. It was subject to constant battle Avenue, Washington DC; Polish Code damage and only marginally useful. In 1855, Breaking; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982); Turing, a private firm under military direction con- Alan Mathison (1912–1954); Ultra; structed an underwater cable of 340 miles Welchman, Gordon (1906–1985); Y Service (by far the longest ever constructed to that point) to connect Balaclava across the Black Sources Sea with Varna in present-day Bulgaria (and Deavours, Cipher A., and Louis Kruh. 1985. then connecting with existing continental Machine Cryptography and Modern Cryptanaly- sis. Dedham, MA: Artech House. telegraph lines). It lasted only eight months Mowry, David P. 2003. German Cipher Machines due to its fragility. of World War II. Fort Meade, MD: National As a result of these new connections, Security Agency. commanders in the field were for the first Winkel, Brian J., Cipher A. Deavours, David time interfered with (they felt) by constant Kahn, and Louis Kruh, eds. 2005. The questions and suggestions (and sometimes German Enigma Cipher Machine: Beginnings, Success, and Ultimate Failure. Dedham, MA: orders) from distant military headquarters in Artech House. London and Paris. Postwar assessments of telegraphy suggested, however, that it had limited impact on the fighting. European Late In the war between France and Austria in Nineteenth-Century Wars the early 1860s, both armies made tactical use of telegraphy and often attacked the Changing modes of communication, and other side’s communication lines. Growing especially the electric telegraph, played a out of its success in rapidly laying field tele- growing part in European wars in the last graph lines, France established the Telegraph half of the nineteenth century. Military and Brigade as well as a school to train telegra- government use of electric telegraphy was phers in 1868. Likewise, Prussia benefited initially dominant as the technology was from its effective use of telegraphy in the introduced in mid-century. several wars leading to German unification. The first military test of telegraphy came The Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) saw during the Crimean War (1854–1856), in Germany using both military and civil tele- which Britain and France sought to stop graph systems, as well as lines captured Russian expansion into Ottoman (Turkish) from the French. Germany formed special territory. An extensive Russian electric tele- telegraph companies for fighting army units, graph system, completed by the German and her aggressive laying of tactical lines firm of Siemens & Halske in 1855, provided sometimes preceded military actions. French a vital link from north of St. Petersburg (then forces surrounded in Paris made notable use the capital) through Moscow and south to of hot air balloons to get messages (and often Sevastopol on the Black Sea (site of a long human and pigeon messengers) above and siege) as well as east to Warsaw. On the other beyond German siege lines. side, British Royal Engineers built and oper- The often central role of telegraphy during ated 21 miles of Wheatstone single- needle the American Civil War (1861–1865) prompted telegraph line between British headquarters European armies and navies to more closely

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examine use of the technology. The British As with all military communications, how- School of Military Engineering formed a sig- ever, even the tried and true suffered ill use: nal wing in 1869 to teach both electric and the infamous and futile charge of the Light visual telegraphy methods. In 1886 the Brigade during the Crimean War was due to School of Signaling focused on visual meth- a garbled order sent by courier. To the end of ods and electric telegraphy remained with the century, most European armies retained the engineers until both methods were again extensive military pigeon messaging systems, combined on the eve of World War I. at least as a backup to other modes of commu- Military forces in all countries were slow to nicating. And European naval forces contin- adopt the telephone in the late nineteenth cen- ued to rely heavily on flag signals by day and tury, however, due to the technology’s lack of Ardois and other light systems by night. effective repeaters for long-range use and the Christopher H. Sterling widespread preference for paper copies of commands provided by the older telegraph. See also Airships and Balloons; American Civil The full potential of the telephone was only War (1861–1865); Ardois Light; France: Army; Germany: Army; Jackson, Henry B. slowly realized. The first military telephone (1855–1929); Spanish-American War (1898); switchboard was not installed by Britain until Telegraph; Telephone; Undersea Cables 1896. Prussian cavalry units experimented with field telephones a year earlier. Sources On the other hand, wireless telegraphy Allat, H. T. W. 1886. “The Use of Pigeons as was pursued vigorously as a method of mil- Messengers in War and the Military Pigeon Systems of Europe.” Journal of the Royal itary communication. The British army and United Service Institution 30: 107–148. such Royal Navy officers as Henry Jackson Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy. were among those who pioneered research London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. on the military potential of wireless telegra- Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: phy, applying crude systems to experimental A History of Its Antecedents and Development. field conditions. The French installed wire- London: Royal Signals Association. Scheips, Paul J., ed. 1980. Military Signal less on a gunboat in 1899. German military Communications. New York: Arno Press. units were assisted by the work of their Schowalter, Dennis. 1973. “Soldiers into countrymen Adolph Slaby and George von Postmasters? The Electric Telegraph as an Arco in the 1890s. Generally, merchant ships Instrument of Command in the Prussian were quicker to adopt wireless than their Army.” Military Affairs 37 (April): 48–52. Von Chauvin, Maj. Gen. 1884. “The Organiza- military counterparts. tion of the Electric Telegraph in Germany Despite the newer systems, old means of for War Purposes.” Journal of the Royal communicating remained in use, sometimes United Service Institution 28: 777–808, because electrical systems were not available. 1051–1064.

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Facsimile/Fax were begun in France by an Italian, Giovanni Caselli. Soon facsimile machines were in ser- To create an electronic facsimile means to vice in the French telegraph system, used transmit an exact copy of a graphic, photo, or primarily by the French government to carry document at a distance. Usually abbreviated stock information. Fax drew usage thanks to as “fax,” the process combines some means elimination of errors in transmission and the of scanning the image and its transmission availability of a facsimile signature so impor- by wire or wireless. It has been in military tant in business transactions. use since World War II. The nineteenth-century contact type of Facsimile developed more than a century facsimile device limited transmission speed. before it became widespread, the result of This was overcome through the 1902 devel- work by many inventors in several coun- opment of the photoelectric cell by Arthur tries. The first facsimile was the chemical Korn of Germany, and his application of it to telegraph of Alexander Bain (1811–1877) phototelegraphy work. By 1910 Korn had patented in 1842 and operated a decade later. established phototelegraphy links from Shortly thereafter, Frederick Bakewell intro- Berlin to Paris and London, and in 1922 he duced the notion of scanning a document successfully transmitted a picture from line by line. Both systems used damp elec- Rome to New York by radio. In 1926 a com- trolytic paper as a recording medium and a mercial radio link for facsimile was opened scanning stylus in physical contact with the between London and New York. Soon pic- text. Bain’s was a flatbed machine while in tures for newspaper publication were Bakewell’s model the papers were wound on being transmitted around the world. Devel- drums, which long served as a fax standard. opments in the 1930s by Bell Labs and For years development of facsimile focused others included transmission of weather on improving its scanning and reproduction maps and wire photo services. The expense functions. In 1865 the first working trials for of having material photographed for trans- a commercially viable facsimile machine mission led to a system of transmission

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based on reflected light. In 1935 the Associ- ory and ten-keypad dialing as well as the use ated Press installed a countrywide wire of digital cryptographic systems. photo network, and postal services offered Christopher H. Sterling public fax access. Several attempts to intro- duce facsimile news into the residential mar- See also Bain, Alexander (1811–1877); Bell ket failed to achieve widespread adoption. Telephone Laboratories (BTL); Internet; Telegraph During World War II, use of facsimile aided U.S. military forces in several ways. In Sources mid-1942 the Army Communications Service Coopersmith, J. 1994. “The Failure of Fax: When began providing telephotos for domestic a Vision is Not Enough.” Economic and newspaper use. In January 1943, the Air Business History 23: 272–282. Force began transmitting accurate, current Costigan, Daniel M. 1978. “History.” In Electronic Delivery of Documents and Graphics, weather charts, though each one took twenty 2–21. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. minutes to transmit. Hatch, Carl H. 1944. “Radiophoto.” Radio News Only in the 1960s did cheaper facsimile U.S. Army Signal Corps Issue (February): machines become available for connection by 218, 316, 318, 320. telephone. Growth was prompted in the HF-Fax Image Communication. “History.” [Online information; retrieved September United States by declining postal services and 1995.] http://www.hffax.de/html/hauptteil in Japan by the pictorial nature of its complex _faxhistory.htm. alphabet. Solid state digital technology was Peterson, M. J. 1995. “The Emergence of a Mass introduced, and technical standards devel- Market for Fax Machines.” Technology and oped by the International Telecommunication Society 17: 469–482. Union (the first in 1968) reduced transmis- sion time for a page to six minutes. Improved standards in 1976 halved trans- Falklands Conflict (1982) mission time and improved graphic quality. By 1980 fax machines used digital transmis- The 1982 confrontation between Britain and sion, were smaller and cheaper, and took Argentina over the British colony of the Falk- less than a minute per page with better res- land (Malvinas) Islands provided a good olution. Japanese firms began mass produc- example of the central role of communica- tion of digital fax machines. Standards have tions. When Argentinian forces surrendered continued to improve, but fax usage is to the British on 14 June 1982, their occupa- declining in the face of Internet capabilities. tion of the Falkland Islands had lasted for Military use of fax remains important today seventy-four days. (They held the related thanks to secure devices (those that are Joint but 800-mile-distant South Georgia for only Interoperability Test Command certified), three weeks.) This ten-week interlude had including TEMPEST (a code name referring to interrupted 142 years of British rule of the investigations and studies of compromising Falklands (population less than 2,000) as a emanations) models internally shielded to Crown colony. prevent electronic emissions from escaping The Argentine forces had landed on and allowing detection—though at a sharp 2 April 1982, leading to uproar in Britain premium in equipment cost. Secure fax oper- and the launching of a naval task force to ation depends on sufficient document mem- retake the colony. The task force (which

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included two carriers) left Portsmouth on 5 nications infrastructure had to be largely April 1982, to be followed by three British replaced. Microwave networks were estab- liners rapidly converted to troop-carrying lished to link outlying communities with the status. The first Royal Signals involvement capital of Port Stanley. Once again weather was with SAS (Special Air Service Regiment, (winter in the South Atlantic) made installa- or commando) detachments that were tion of those facilities most difficult. inserted onto South Georgia and later East Christopher H. Sterling Falkland to obtain information about the See also United Kingdom: Royal Corps of enemy. Radio communications over the Signals 8,000 miles back to Britain (the Falklands are just 300 miles offshore from Argentina) were Sources sometimes interrupted by atmospheric con- Hastings, Max, and Simon Jenkins. 1984. The ditions in the islands, which suffer a harsh Battle for the Falklands. New York: Norton. Warner, Philip. 1989. “‘Operation Corporate’ climate. Conditions on the ground also made The Falklands War.” In The Vital Link: The communication security difficult to achieve, Story of Royal Signals, 1945–1985, chap. 8. as did constant Argentinian air attacks. London: Leo Cooper. Britain’s 30 Signal Regiment established a communications center at the staging post on Ascension Island, the British staging base Fateful Day—25 June 1876 some 2,000 miles north of the Falklands. Royal Signals detachments provided rear link Sunday, 25 June 1876, is a little-noted commu- communications from most fighting units. By nications landmark in American history. On 1 June 1982, 5 Infantry Brigade headquarters that one day, separated by several hours but and a signal squadron had landed at St. Car- more than 2,000 miles, two events occurred los and used the new Clansman-type combat that provide an ironic hint of how changing radios. The regiment, with support from other communications technology would eventu- units, formed a unit to support the British ally meet military needs. land forces headquarters. Members of 50 Sig- Philadelphia was the site of the extensive nallers ran fifteen radio networks aboard Centennial Exposition in Fairmont Park, HMS Fearless, which was the main headquar- which was attracting hordes of visitors that ters for the British attack. summer. Its several ornate buildings were 30 Signal Regiment also provided satellite filled with exhibits of the latest technologies, communications back to Britain and secure including a massive Corliss steam engine telegraph connections for two brigades. Ship- that dominated Machinery Hall. The exposi- borne satellite terminals assisted. This was tion’s buildings were closed on that hot June the first use of satellite communication by day (because it was a Sunday), as judges the army in a major operation. As one partic- gathered to award prizes for selected ipant noted later, the radio telephone was as exhibits, a task made easier without the noise clear as if the call had been coming from from visiting crowds. Brazilian Emperor next door. Approximately 600 Royal Signals Dom Pedro, on an extended visit to the men had taken part in the action. United States, was on hand as he paid a When the short but bitter battle to retake return visit to the exposition. He had become the Falklands was over, the islands’ commu- interested in deaf education and wanted to

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see what Alexander Graham Bell was dis- Putting the two events of 25 June 1876 playing. Bell’s exhibit occupied one small together with 130 years’ retrospective, we table in a back corner of the East Gallery. can see that what was shown in Philadel- Dom Pedro led others back to Bell’s crude phia, crude and tentative though it then was, telegraph (as it was called) equipment and would grow to become a vital means of com- soon heard it demonstrated by the inventor. munications, military and otherwise. In As he listened to the faint words the device years to come, improving modes of rapid transmitted, Dom Pedro exclaimed, “I hear, communication would prove vital to meet- I hear!” Soon word of mouth spread news of ing the military needs exemplified by that Bell’s voice-telegraph display and demon- lonely ridge above the Little Big Horn River. strations. While few then recognized it, Bell’s Christopher H. Sterling device was only the beginning of what See also Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922); would become a huge new business that Telephone would join and eventually supplant the telegraph. Sources On that same Sunday, almost 2,500 miles Bruce, Robert V. 1973. “Philadelphia, 1876.” In to the west and several hours later, the sun Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, chap. 18. Boston: Little, Brown. was also hot above the ridge overlooking Panzeri, Peter F. 1995. Little Big Horn 1876: the Little Bighorn River in southern Montana Custer’s Last Stand. Campaign Series No. 39. Territory. Lieutenant Colonel George A. London: Osprey. Custer was leading five companies of the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry on a punitive expedition against a number of Indian tribes Ferrié, Gustave-Auguste who had left their reservations. Expecting (1868–1932) to meet only feeble resistance, Custer instead ran into a huge encampment of thousands of A French engineer and scientist as well as an Indians, including about 2,500 fighting men. army officer, Ferrié was the World War I Before the day was over, he and his less than head of his country’s military communica- 200 men would lie dead after a brief but tions and accomplished pioneering work in hard-fought battle, overwhelmed by the both ground telegraphy and radio. Indian warriors. Though another seven com- Born 19 November 1868 in St. Michel in panies of cavalry were but four miles away, Savoy, France, Ferrié graduated from the Custer lacked any effective means of rapidly prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris in bringing them to the site of the fighting— 1891, becoming an engineering officer in the and he and his men died as a result. While French army. From 1893 to 1898 he worked controversy over orders and common sense on improving his country’s military tele- have swirled around the infamous “last graph service. When Ferrié was named to a stand” ever since, the fact remains that had committee exploring the potential for wire- Custer an effective means of rapidly signal- less telegraphy, however, he found his real ing his unit’s distress, the result might have niche. By 1899 he was working with Gugli- been different. Then again, it can be argued elmo Marconi in Paris on wireless links that the twenty-minute fight did not leave with England. In 1903 Ferrié invented an much room for variation. electrolytic detector (an early means of

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receiving wireless signals), which proved buried nearby. They could thus tap enemy more reliable than the Branly coherer then in lines as well as receive their own signals widespread use. when a line had been severed. These After he proposed using the Eiffel Tower in receivers came to play a large role in eaves- 1903 to mount antennas for longer-range dropping. Its portability and its freedom radiotelegraphy, under his direction a trans- from electrical lines made ground telegraphy mitter was installed in the tower. Over five an important means of communication dur- years of effort, its effective range increased ing the war. Yet even before war’s end in from an initial 250 miles to 3,700 miles by 1918, ground telegraphy began to be dis- 1908. He then turned to development of placed by radio. mobile transmitters to enable military units to Ferrié created a radio section at the École stay in contact with their Paris headquarters. Supérieur d’Électricité in Gif sur Yvette. He When World War I began in August 1914, also experimented with radio transmissions then Colonel Ferrié was appointed to direct from aircraft to direct artillery fire. He French military radio communications. He became a general in 1919 and continued in quickly assembled scientists and technicians service, exempted from retirement in accor- who established a network of radio direction dance with a special law enacted in 1930. finders stretching from the English Channel He received many awards and honorary to the Swiss border. During the war years degrees and served as an officer of several Ferrié made considerable advances in teleg- scientific groups. Ferrié died on 16 February raphy. Using the triode vacuum tube, Ferrié 1932 in Paris at the age of sixty-five. made improvements in the transmitter (sig- Christopher H. Sterling nal generator) and the receiver and achieved See also France: Army; Fullerphone; Radio; a usual range of several miles. His simple Vacuum Tube; World War I army transmitter was essentially a buzzer (or, more technically, an electromechanical Source Geocities.com. “Gustave-Auguste Ferrié.” device that interrupts a circuit at a high rate [Online information; retrieved November of speed) powered by a battery. The receiver 2004.] http://www.geocities.com/ served as an amplifier. To complete a com- neveyaakov/electro_science/ferrie.html. munications circuit, earth connections were made by driving steel pins into the ground. Additionally, a short length of insulated wire Fessenden, Reginald A. was often laid along the ground surface and (1866–1932) anchored at each end by a spike. Thus was born ground telegraphy or earth-currents Reginald Fessenden was an important wire- signaling. less pioneer who developed several impor- These simple devices began to be used in tant radio devices (using his heterodyne and large numbers in 1916, and by the end of continuous wave innovations) early in the the war the French had produced almost twentieth century. He was among the first to 10,000 of them. In the process of ground broadcast voice and music signals, in addi- telegraphy operations, users discovered that tion to more traditional telegraphic code. their receivers frequently could pick up other Born in Quebec on 6 October 1866, Fes- telegraph or telephone signals from lines senden was introduced to electricity in 1886

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when he began working for Thomas Edi- son’s company. By the early 1890s he had worked for Westinghouse and had pub- lished several articles and (though he lacked academic credentials) become a professor of electrical engineering, first at Purdue Univer- sity and then, in 1893, at Western Pennsylva- nia University (later University of Pittsburgh). In 1900 he began contract wire- less development work for the U.S. Weather Bureau. By mid-year he had managed to transmit the human voice to stations a mile apart near Rock Point, Maryland. In 1903 he became the chief researcher of the new National Electric Signal Company (NESCO) with financial support from two Pittsburgh financiers who sought to exploit his newly developed heterodyne principle, which allowed sending and receiving from the same antenna, a notion about a decade ahead of its time. Fessenden also developed the idea of an Reginald Fessenden is the Canadian experimenter alternator device to transmit continuous generally credited with transmitting the first wireless wave signals (this was further developed voice and music signals early in the 20th century. He later worked on submarine signaling devices. (Circer, and improved by Ernst Alexanderson of Hayward, ed., Dictionary of American Portraits, General Electric) and a liquid barretter, or 1967) electrolytic detector of wireless signals, that was soon widely used by the U.S. Navy— which ignored his patent rights and pur- chased equipment from other sources. Navy ever, led to constant bickering with his own officers also experimented extensively with backers and many potential clients. Fes- the Fessenden devices at their research radio senden had largely left the wireless business station (which became NAA) in Arlington, (his bankrupt firm was sold for the patent Virginia. Wartime Navy wireless employed rights it held—those rights ended up with equipment using Fessenden’s principles Radio Corporation of America) by 1912, iron- until replaced by vacuum tube devices. ically just about the time the developing NESCO built a number of coastal trans- radio industry had begun to agree on the mitters and experimented with transoceanic need for the continuous wave transmissions wireless telegraphy. Fessenden had also suc- he had pioneered. cessfully transmitted voice and music signals Fessenden’s final radio work involved the on several occasions, some of them wit- Submarine Signal Company of Boston, nessed, by 1905. His difficult personality and which he joined in 1912 to perfect underwa- lack of marketing ability (or interest), how- ter signal transmission and reception, natu-

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rally of interest to the Navy. With Navy sup- included developing a source of power to port, the company tested the Fessenden transmit a message (this became the laser) Oscillator as a means of detecting icebergs, and improving the purity of the glass used in determining water depth, and locating sub- the cable. Into the early 1960s, most optical marines. Again, the Navy used his innova- fiber was useful only for very short dis- tions without paying royalties or even tances—such as in surgery—because of granting him credit until decades later. Fes- rapid signal attenuation. senden left the firm in 1921 and retired to After preliminary research at Fort Mon- Bermuda where he died on 23 July 1932. mouth, New Jersey, then headquarters of the Christopher H. Sterling Army Signal Corps, in 1961 and 1962, the See also de Forest, Lee (1873–1961); Edison, idea of using highly pure glass fiber to trans- Thomas A. (1847–1931); Naval Radio mit light was made public information in a Stations/Service; U.S. Navy request for proposals issued to all research laboratories. Corning Glass in New York Sources won the contract in 1962. Federal funding for Aitken, Hugh G. J. 1985. “Fessenden and the glass fiber optics research at Corning totaled Alternator.” In The Continuous Wave: Technol- ogy and American Radio, 1900–1932. Princeton, about $1 million by 1970. Signal Corps fund- NJ: Princeton University Press. ing of many research programs on fiber Fessenden, Helen M. 1940. Fessenden: Builder of optics continued until 1985, thereby seeding Tomorrows. New York: Coward McCann the multibillion dollar industry that all but (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). eliminated copper wire in communications Fessenden, R. A. 1899. “The Possibilities of transmission. Wireless Telegraphy.” Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 16: The American military adopted fiber 607–651. optics well before most commercial applica- Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- tions, generally for improved communica- Electronics in the United States Navy. tions and tactical systems. In an early 1970s Washington, DC: Government Printing demonstration, the U.S. Navy installed a Office. Seitz, Frederick. 1999. The Cosmic Inventor: fiber optic telephone link aboard the USS Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. Philadelphia: Little Rock, testing to see how well it elimi- American Philosophical Society. nated electromagnetic interference from other devices on board. Using fiber optics rather than copper also saves weight—liter- Fiber Optics ally tons of it on a vessel of any size. The Air Force followed suit by developing its Air- A fiber optic telecommunications line or borne Light Optical Fiber Technology pro- cable combines purified glass and lasers to gram in 1976. Encouraged by the success of communicate with broadband capacities at a these and other applications, military re- very high speed. While some of the ideas search and development programs sought are anything but new, developing an eco- stronger fibers, tactical cables, more rugged nomically viable fiber optic system for dis- high-performance components, and numer- tance communications has occurred only ous demonstration systems ranging from over the past several decades. The chief tech- aircraft to undersea cable applications. By nical problems in developing such a system the mid-1980s, the Pentagon itself began an

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optical fiber rewiring process, as did many conduits, but that obviously limits access for related organizations such as the National repair and upgrading. Security Agency and the country’s atomic Christopher H. Sterling laboratories. See also Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); Several weapons systems incorporated Communications Security (COMSEC); Fort fiber systems, including the fiber optic Monmouth, New Jersey; Laser; Undersea guided missile used for short-range tactical Cables missiles. The missile pays out a cable as it Sources flies (at a bit less than 200 miles per hour) Boyle, W. S. 1977. “Light-Wave Communica- and the operator can receive video and data tions” Scientific American August: 40–48. to help guide it more closely to its target. The Chafee, C. David. 1988. “Refitting the U.S. Navy’s Ariadne system, studied in the late Military.” In The Rewiring of America: The Fiber Optics Revolution, 173–190. Orlando, FL: 1980s, proposed an antisubmarine listening Academic Press. network on both coasts, linking undersea Hecht, Jeff. 1999. City of Light: The Story of Fiber microphones with fiber optic cables. Fiber Optics. New York: Oxford University Press. links also allow for a central operator to control many and more distant radar or lis- tening posts. The Defense Commercializa- Field, Cyrus W. (1819–1892) tion Telecommunications Network was a decade-long project through the 1990s to link More than any other person, Cyrus Field (with both fiber optic networks and satel- was responsible for financing and directing lites) more than 150 military bases and fif- the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph teen major military nodes throughout the cables that would help revolutionize world United States. communications. While he himself was not Fiber optics offers a number of military involved in military applications of cable advantages over other modes of communi- telegraphy, he made them possible. cation. These include longer distances Field was born, one of ten children, on 30 between repeaters, immunity from radio fre- November 1819 in Stockbridge, Massachu- quency and electromagnetic interference, setts, and moved to New York City while still operating without emitting an electronic in his teens to serve as an apprentice at a large “signature” that can be picked up by an dry goods store. He then joined his older enemy, and relatively light weight (com- brother’s papermaking company. By the end pared, for example, to copper lines) and of the 1840s he had retired a wealthy man space requirements. from his career in the paper business and had Despite widespread assumptions about built a house facing fashionable Gramercy their relative invulnerability, however, ex- Park. In 1852, he first heard about the possi- perts say fiber optic networks are susceptible bilities of submarine telegraphy from Freder- to intrusions and other security threats. ick Gisborne, who wanted to build a line to Because most intrusion detection systems and across Newfoundland, thus saving two for fiber optics are not sensitive enough, days in message transmission from Europe to intruders could read information from a New York. Field was soon hooked on the new fiber optic network without the knowledge technology, the idea of building a cable from of its administrator or users. The military Newfoundland to Ireland, and saving two has encased some fiber links within cement weeks. He was soon raising funds to build

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such a transatlantic cable—the laying of a Hearn, Chester G. 2004. Circuits in the Sea: The cable under the English Channel had taken Men, the Ships, and the Atlantic Cable. place just three years earlier. Westport, CT: Praeger. Judson, Isabella Field. 1896. Cyrus W. Field: His After several failed attempts (all of the sci- Life and Work. New York: Harcourt, Brace. ence and technology was new and mistakes McDonald, Philip B.1937. A Saga of the Seas. were rife), the first successful cable was laid New York: Wilson-Erickson. in August 1858. Sadly, it worked for only about a month—to great fanfare on both sides of the Atlantic—but slowly went dead, Field Wire and Cable probably a victim of faulty insulation or too much power for the lines. Rising political Wire and cable are used to interconnect tension that would lead to the American activities within command posts and be - Civil War made seeking investment all but tween radio relay terminals and switching impossible until the mid-1860s when Field centers. Long-haul wire circuits (trunks) are tried again. In mid-1865, with improved installed to complement radio systems when cable and a huge ship (Brunel’s Great Eastern, time, personnel, and equipment are avail- the largest in the world), his consortium able. Wire or cable is especially useful in mil- nearly completed a cable when the line itary operations where movement is static or parted just short of shore. Raising still more limited, as on an established base. funds, Field tried one more time and in 1866 Several types of communications wire and finally achieved lasting success. The 1865 cable exist. A single conductor line is the cable was also raised and repaired so there basic connection for simple telegraphy; it were two strands across the ocean. can be bare or insulated. A multiconductor With millions earned from the transat- consists of multiple insulated wires. The lantic cable, Field returned to New York for term “twisted pair” refers to two insulated much of the rest of his life. He seriously wires twisted together for strength and ease explored options for a Pacific telegraph of laying. The standard means of telephone cable, but could not get cooperation of the networking, coaxial cable features an insu- many governments involved. He invested lated center conductor with a shield (which in the city’s elevated railroads as well as rail- is also a conductor) and a protective jacket ways elsewhere. Ultimately, he was double- and is used for broadband or video commu- crossed by his business partners (one was nication. There are many types of wire gauge financier Jay Gould) while his remaining for- (smaller gauge wire in World War II worked tune was stolen by his son, leaving Field as well as larger gauge wire in World War I) nearly penniless. Field died at age seventy- as well as protective shields. two in Stockbridge on 12 July 1892. Among the many advantages of military Christopher H. Sterling use of wire and cable communications are that See also Undersea Cables they reduce the need for radio (which can be so easily intercepted) and decrease radio inter- Sources ference; they can lower the electronic “signa- Carter, Samuel. 1968. Cyrus Field: Man of Two Worlds. New York: Putnam. ture” of command posts; and they reduce the Gordon, John Steele. 2002. A Thread Across the enemy’s jamming, interference, and direction- Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic finding capabilities. Wire and cable can pro- Cable. New York: Walker. vide backup and increased traffic capabilities

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for military radio systems and are not subject Precision Measurement Equipment Laborato- to interference or jamming. ries. “Electrical Wire and Cable Glossary.” Among their disadvantages are that mili- [Online information; retrieved June 2006.] http://www.pmel.org/Wire-Cable-Glossary tary wire and cable take time to install and .htm. maintain, and, as with radio, they are not U.S. Army Signal Center. “Wire and Cable secure unless encrypted. Wire and cable net- Equipment, World War II.” [Online informa- works cannot readily react to fast-moving tion; retrieved June 2006.] http://www situations and are limited by both terrain .gordon.army.mil/ocos/Museum/AMC/ wire.asp. and distance considerations. Unlike radio, they are susceptible to damage by friendly action (such as wheeled and tracked vehicle movement across them) as well as being sus- Fire/Flame/Torch ceptible to damage by direct or indirect artillery fire or bombing. Finally, wire and The use of fire or torches for signaling is cable both conduct electromagnetic pulses, surely one of the oldest human means of which can seriously damage attached tele- distant communication. Indeed the use of phone and switching equipment. fire was for thousands of years the only Wire and cable can be laid in different means of sending a nighttime message. Sim- ways, ranging from an individual pulling ple fires could be made to flare up (by adding lines to specially designed vehicles or, for fuel) to make a signal. Or the flames could be line burial, cable plows. Special reels can hidden (by a blanket or animal skin), allow- carry wire in such a way as to allow rapid ing very basic “on-off” coded messages. unwinding and laying in battle conditions. Both the Greeks and the Romans used These reels were mounted on horseback well bonfires to communicate messages over long into World War I. During World War II, a distances. A line of bonfires was laid on hill- cable thrower allowed wire to be laid from a tops from the scene of a battle to the nearest rapidly moving truck, the wire projected to main town. As one fire was lit, the team at the side of the road and into trees. The same the next one in the chain would see it and unit could recover wire, though more slowly. light theirs, and so on until the last fire was Christopher H. Sterling lit. This system lent itself only to simple yes- no, won-lost kinds of messages. See also Communications Security (COMSEC); A more complex Roman signaling method, Fiber Optics; Undersea Cables which drew on earlier Greek and Carthagin- ian “water clocks,” combined use of torches Sources Black, R.M. 1983. The History of Electric Wires and and containers (usually wooden barrels) Cables. London: Peter Peregrinus. filled with water. Each sending and receiving Department of the Army, 1990. “Wire and Cable site would have a numbered list of mes- Operations.” In Communications in a “Come- sages—essentially a code. Each site also had as-you-are” War, chap. 5. Field Manual 24–12. a barrel of water with a scale of numbers Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. running vertically down the inside. The Franzen, Roy O. 1942. “Wire Communication.” sender would raise his torch to show intent Radio News Special U.S. Army Signal Corps to begin a message. The receiver would raise Issue (November): 102–105, 204–208. his torch to indicate readiness to receive. The

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sender would then remove the bung from attracting attention or communicating mes- the barrel and raise his torch, holding it up sages, military or otherwise. while water drained into a container. He Christopher H. Sterling would lower his torch when the water level See also Ancient Signals; Lights and Beacons; dropped to a level equal with the desired Maori Signaling; Native American Signaling; number on the message list and would then Night Signals; Smoke replace the bung. His counterpart took the same steps, keeping his torch aloft until the Sources sender lowered his. He would then read Acker, Lewis F. 1939. “Communication Systems of the American Indians.” Signal Corps the number to determine the intended mes- Bulletin 103: 63–70. sage. The biggest problem was that the rate of Woolliscroft, D. J. 2001. Roman Military discharge from both barrels might differ due Signalling. Stroud, UK: Tempus. to the size of each (and the bung hole size could vary as well). Therefore, each barrel would need to be individually calibrated. This Fiske, Bradley A. (1854–1942) was cumbersome to operate, let alone carry about on field operations, and the method Bradley Allen Fiske was a career U.S. naval proved notoriously inaccurate in practice. officer and inventor whose inventions To speed up message transmission, the greatly improved the efficiency and effec- Romans developed a system using multiple tiveness of the U.S. Navy. One of the most torches. To create messages, two men would successful inventors in the formative years of raise from one to five torches in a predeter- the modern navy, Fiske is credited with mined manner. Various combinations could developing an electronic range finder, an be assigned specific coded meanings. Poly- electrically powered gun turret, the torpedo bius claimed to have invented such a system, plane, various telescopes, and an electro- which used five torches on each side and magnetic system for detonating torpedoes would only have worked at stationary rather under ships. His inventions came at a time than mobile field locations. It required more when the United States was developing a men to operate than did the water barrel modern navy and establishing itself as a system. global power. Signal and smoke fires were commonly Fiske was born on 13 June 1854 in Lyons, used by Native Americans (and indigenous New York. He graduated from the Naval people in other areas), both before and after Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1874. the arrival of European settlers. Several fires His first major contribution to the Navy was might be used at a time to signal specific the installation of electricity on newly com- messages. They were especially useful in missioned U.S. battleships during the 1880s. rugged terrain or along coastlines to warn of During the Spanish-American War (1898), impending enemy landings. Fire arrows Lieutenant Fiske served as chief navigator on (those dipped in burnable material and held the gunboat Petrel. With access to a labora- together with glue) could be used as warn- tory in New York City funded by Western ings when shot into the night sky. Electric, Fiske developed a series of optical Even in modern times, fire and flames can devices that he attempted to use as range be used as a standby or emergency means of finders. One of these inventions—the

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stadimeter range finder, which communi- King, Randolph W., et al., eds. 1989. Naval cated the ranges of enemy vessels to gunners Engineering and American Seapower. on U.S. ships—was successfully employed Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Company. during the Battle of Manila Bay. The stadime- ter used a series of mirrors to measure the Flaghoist angular distance between two objects. Fiske was promoted to commander in 1903 and The most common and longest-used flag sig- captain in 1907. In 1911, he suggested that naling system is a series of multiple flags torpedoes be launched from aircraft. Al - and pennants used among both merchant though he initially planned to use radio and naval ships at sea since perhaps 1450. transmissions to guide the torpedoes, he There is thrill and romance to such flaghoist eventually decided to simply drop them signaling as we sense in the words of a from the aircraft so they would travel a British signalman at the turn of the twentieth straight line toward the target. He obtained century: “Picture a fleet of ironclad in paral- a patent for his dropping device in 1912. lel lines . . . only 400 yards apart and rushing In 1913, Fiske was promoted to rear admi- though the water at 15 knots . . . Two small ral. With World War I on the horizon, Fiske flags flutter quickly up to the admiral’s advocated a policy of military preparedness. yardarm and down again. While they are The start of World War I in August 1914, on their way, the other ships seize their however, brought Fiske into conflict with meaning and hang out answering pendants Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. to signify the same. The whole thing is over Daniels, who was committed to presenting in 10 seconds and not a scrap of bunting to the United States as a neutral power, forbade be seen” (Woods, 1965, 31). contingency planning, war games, and the Meanwhile, in response, the entire fleet expansion of the Navy’s shipbuilding pro- has turned 90 degrees to starboard, almost gram. Although this conflict with Daniels as if the multivessel fleet were but a single led to Fiske’s resignation in 1916, he headed warship. a team of investigators that unveiled the Because it required flying multiple flags, depth charge and thrower in 1917, which flaghoist signaling demanded careful and was successfully used against German sub- standardized design. Four shapes of flag marines after the United States entered design soon became standard: (1) rectangu- World War I. Fiske died on 6 April 1942 in lar; (2) rectangular with the triangular cut in New York City. the outboard edge (known as a “burgee”); (3) Michael R. Hall smaller triangular; and (4) slightly longer See also Spanish-American War (1898); U.S. triangular, coming to a point or rounded end Navy (usually termed a “pennant,” or “pendant”). In addition to their shape, flags also varied Sources greatly in their patterns. Among them were Coletta, Paolo E. 1979. Admiral Bradley A. Fiske squares of one color, vertical and horizontal and the American Navy. Lawrence: Regents cross, diagonal cross, one or more diagonal Press of Kansas. Fiske, Bradley A. 1919. From Midshipman to Rear- stripes, one or more horizontal stripes, or Admiral. New York: Century. two or more vertical stripes. Or flag design Karsten, Peter. 1972. The Naval Aristocracy. New might be divided into quarters, diagonally, York: Free Press. into nine or sixteen small squares, or with a

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A flaghoist is shown on the USS Lyman K. Swenson tied up off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in early 1946. The signal flag on the starboard halliards is “H,” meaning “I have a pilot aboard.” The four signal flags on the port side are the ship’s call letters “NTHR.” (U.S. Naval Historical Center)

small square inside, with a larger square to a square. It soon became clear that a inside, with a circle inside, with five crosses darker versus lighter shaped pattern guaran- inside, seven diagonal stripes, four triangles, teed greater visibility, thus dooming any flag a solid burgee, or burgee with vertical designs depending exclusively on color. stripes. Similar patterns were also used on P. H. Colomb noted only three objections both burgees and the narrower and longer to the flaghoist: (1) color confusion, which pennants. could be eliminated by proper flag deign; (2) Color was another consideration, al - the lack of wind while in port or at slow though the combination of black and white speed, which could harm reading of a flag was most easily seen. Dark colors contrasted signal; and (3) complexity as more flags were to light or noncolored patterns were pre- added. He noted, “With a set of 10 flags, ferred. Ultimately, colors were restricted to numbered 1 to 0, instead of being able to go black, blue, red, yellow, and white. Early on, steadily on from 1 up to 9999, using no more a national or naval ensign was often added than 4 flags at a time, all the groups in which

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the same flag appears twice, must be omitted, See also Code, Codebook; Color; Flags; and this reduces the number of signals by Flagship; International Code of Signals; nearly one-half. To obtain the full amount, it Jutland, Battle of (1916); Trafalgar, Battle of (21 October 1805) is necessary to add at least three additional flags, which are called ‘repeaters’ and which Sources become substitutes for the first, second, or Colomb, P. H. 1863. “Naval and Military third flags in the series” (Colomb 1863). Signals.” Journal of the Royal United Service Most individual flag signals involved Institution. 7 (20): 349–393. either three or four flags, and a full message Niblack, A. P. 1892. “Naval Signaling.” Proceed- ings of the United States Naval Institute 18 (4): might involve no more than twelve. 431–505. Essential to the success of flaghoist sig- Very, Edward W. 1881. “Marine Signals.” A naling was use of a codebook by each signal Naval Encyclopedia, 751–754: Philadelphia. officer. While these books began as guides Woods, David L. 1965. “Flaghoist & Signal for one fleet under a single flag officer, they Books.” In A History of Tactical Communica- tion Techniques, chap. III. Orlando, FL: ultimately become useful to the entire navy Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, of a given nation or, internationally, to all 1974). merchant ships or allied forces. Hundreds of Woods, David L., ed. 1980. Signaling and signals were standardized in these books Communicating at Sea, Vol. I. 2 vols. New and could thus be sent quickly by the sig- York: Arno Press. nalers of one ship and received by all other ships in the group. Many naval officers, especially those in Flags Britain, France, and the United States, helped develop these systems slowly after about One of the oldest means of communicating 1700. But the most important progress was over a distance is the use of colored or pat- initiated by Frederick Marryat, a Royal Navy terned pieces of cloth or flags. Flags either captain who in 1817 created the Code of Sig- displayed in static fashion or waved could nals for the merchant service. He wisely extend the visibility of human arms or other copyrighted his system, and thus earned physical signaling devices. The use of flags considerable royalty income. Eventually, this as a primary means of military signaling had code became today’s International Code of largely ended well before World War I. The Signals. Marryat offered new flag designs to study of flags is known as vexillogy. avoid confusion with the Royal Navy system A flag is usually square or rectangular and of the day, beginning with only ten numeral made up of one or more distinctive colors, flags, two extras, and four pennants. often arranged in a pattern. Flags have varied For more than 300 years, naval officers considerably in size. Long used at sea (and have sent tactical maneuvers to their fleets still used to some extent), flags as the prime via flaghoist. At Trafalgar (1805), Nelson mode of communication for armies lasted made but two signals, while during the four- only until the mid-nineteenth-century incep- hour Battle of Jutland (1916), 257 were trans- tion of heliograph and then telegraphy sys- mitted. As so often happens, even the tems. Flags provide the benefit of being able simplest and most reliable signal system can to communicate complex ideas but may not lead to increased complexity. be visible in still air (when the flag hangs David L. Woods limp) or in conditions of poor visibility or

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considerable distance when colors may be silk or nylon, and lightweight. Albert Myer’s difficult to discern. cotton flags were heavy (even more so Using flags for military signaling goes when wet). back to ancient times. Roman naval forces The large square signaling flags were usu- used red flags or cloaks to signal. Such sys- ally white with a red or black square in the tems, often crude and temporary, remained center of the flag; some were red with a in use, often little changed, but also lacking white square in the center. The Army Signal standardization, for centuries. The late 1660s Corps insignia, worn on the collar of each saw the first English system, the Duke of signal officer, has two crossed wig-wag York (later James II) code, which appears to flags—one red with a smaller white square, have named different colored flags for letters the other white with a smaller red square. of the alphabet. By the middle of the next Many, even in the military service, still con- century about thirty flags and pennants (tri- fuse these large one-flag wig-wag flags with angular flags) were used with a set code. In the smaller, two-flag semaphore flags. Naval 1792, Admiral Lord Richard Howe’s code flags are often red and white diagonally. Five (actually developed by his secretary, a Mr. motions are used for the four-element code, McArthur) reduced the total number of sig- all starting with the flag in front of the sig- nal flags to thirteen and dropped the use of naler in a vertical position: (1) move flag to pennants. Four colors were used and flags the left, (2) back to vertical, (3) move flag to were identified by number and (in more the right, (4) back to vertical, and (5) dip the complex fashion) by letter. Sir Home Pop- flag—meaning a pause. The code was in ham developed much improved and sim- numbers—one to the left; two to the right. plified signal books in the early 1800s. The All letters were turned into numbers to be U.S. Navy adopted the Truxton signal book signaled—”o” was sent as 14 or one left and in 1797, and then the Rogers code in 1846, one right; “d” was 1-1-1 (or three lefts), and which used nine square flags and six pen- so forth. Later a two-element code was used, nants. It was modified on the eve of the which eliminated the vertical movement and American Civil War to use patterns of twelve was deemed simpler and quicker to send flags and nine pennants. and read. Flag systems are of two basic systems— The best system of Army field flag telegra- the one-flag wig-wag and the two-flag, two- phy was first developed by Albert Myer, hand military signal system generally founding head of the U.S. Army Signal known as “semaphore flags.” The one-flag Corps. While serving as an officer in western wig-wag system is characterized by the size military posts in the late 1850s, Myer devised of the flags used. They were usually 2, 4, or the wig-wag flag communications system, 6 feet square. The larger the flag, the further originally made up of four elements (or flag it could be seen. The signal pole was 16 feet waves representing the numbers one in length, usually in 4-foot segments that through four), soon simplified to two. The could be joined. It took a strong man to wave flags were displayed in a prearranged code a 16-foot pole with a 6-foot square flag on representing letters and numbers. Flags were it for an hour or more—especially in any red or black, but this soon changed to the kind of breeze. Flags of such size are seen standard of white and red with a center on college and professional football fields block of the opposite color. The chief advan- from time to time. But those flags are usually tages of the wig-wag system over other

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modes of communication were its portability The French adopted a variation in their and mobility—essential for shifting military flag system, using a single flag for a Morse forces—that allowed commanders to deliver code dot, and two flags for a dash. The sys- orders directly to the field. tem was simple and quick. Most countries After extensive testing of flag signals over adopted the same Continental Morse code as distances of 5 to 20 miles in New Mexico, a basis for operations, allowing parallel use Myer’s method provided the basis of Army of electric and signal flag telegraphy in the communications (on both sides—many of field. The U.S. Army used the Continental his assistants joined the Confederacy) during Morse code as well, but by that time wig- the American Civil War. Myer patented his wag had become outmoded. Development system (including his code) in 1860. The of longer-range rifles brought about the Myer wig-wag code was widely used during decline in use of wig-wag on the battlefield the Civil War by both Union and Confeder- as signalers could be seen and thus shot too ate armies. The Union Navy also used this easily. By the early twentieth century, flag system, and it remained the Joint Signal signaling was used chiefly for messages sent Code between the Army and Navy almost to between Army and Navy units. By World the end of the nineteenth century. War I, flag signaling had fallen out of favor The system spread to European military because battlefield conditions made the forces in the 1860s, though the British were effective reading of such messages very dif- most active in using it, often in various ficult (though such methods were employed African colonial wars of the late nineteenth in the Dardanelles in 1915). century. The British government backed a Two-flag semaphore lasted longest among new International Code, which by 1870 had signals controlled by a single person. Start- been adopted by most of the world’s navies ing about the turn of the twentieth century, and merchant fleets. It utilized thirteen armies and navies worldwide adopted two- square flags, five pennants, and one burgee, flag semaphore, with the only difference or swallow-tailed flag. Combinations of usually being design of flags used. these flown on a flaghoist indicated different David L. Woods and Christopher H. Sterling letters or numbers. It was steadily revised and improved over the years. To extend the See also American Civil War (1861–1865); distances covered, telescopes, binoculars, Ancient Signals; Color; Flaghoist; Flagship; and field glasses were used to read distant Howe, Admiral Lord Richard (1726–1799); flag signals. In comparison to the Myer sys- Human Signaling; Jutland, Battle of (1916); Myer, Albert James (1828–1880); Napoleonic tem, which called only for a response to a Wars (1795–1815); Popham, Home Riggs completed message, each word transmitted (1762–1820); Signal Book; Truxton, Thomas was acknowledged as received. By 1870, the (1755–1822) British army established its first regular sig- nals unit, a formal school following in 1886. Sources During the Boer War, flag signaling was cen- Myer, Albert J. 1877. A Manual of Signals for the Use of Signal Officers in the Field. tral to military operations. After the adoption Washington, DC: Government Printing of the Morse code, the British changed their Office. wig-wag code from ones and twos to dots Royal Signals Organisation. 2005. “The Royal and dashes. Signals. Signalling with Flags.” 2005. [Online

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information; retrieved April 2006.] http:// land in 1916, where signal flag confusion www.royal-signals.org.uk/flagwaving had a strong impact on the outcome of the .php. engagement. Different American battleships Wilson, Timothy. 2000. Flags at Sea: A Guide to the Flags Flown at Sea by Ships of the Major served through the twentieth century as flag- Maritime Nations, from the 16th Century to the ships for the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic and Pacific Present Day. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute (or later its numbered) fleets. Between the Press. world wars, HMS Hood, a battle cruiser fin- Woods, David L., ed. 1965. “Wig-Wag: The ished at the end of World War I, served as at Waving of Flags and Torches.” In A History of least the informal flagship of the Royal Navy. Tactical Communication Techniques, chap V. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by By the early twenty-first century, a flagship Arno Press, 1974). would more likely be an aircraft carrier, or a Woods, David L. 1980. Signaling and Communi- nuclear submarine, as these are the most cating at Sea, Vol. I. 2 vols. New York: Arno important fighting vessels of a modern navy. Press. A navy flagship fulfills a specific commu- nications role. Such a ship will carry signals personnel and may feature a flag deck, Flagship which combines functions of command and communication of those commands to other The term “flagship” (spelled as either one ships. While signal flags may be used, more word or two) historically designates the often communications are by radio and other naval vessel carrying the fleet or squadron modern technologies. commander and his identification—his flag Christopher H. Sterling of rank. Commands controlling a fleet or See also Flaghoist; Flags; Jutland, Battle of squadron were intended to come from this (1916); Spanish-American War (1898); Trafal- vessel, communicated by a system of flags of gar, Battle of (21 October 1805) different colors and shapes, using a pre- arranged code. In the merchant marine, the Sources flagship is often the largest or newest in a Coles, Alan, and Ted Briggs. 1985. Flagship Hood: The Fate of Britain’s Mightiest Warship. given company’s fleet. More generally the London: Robert Hale. word has broadened in meaning to the chief Cooling, B. Franklin. 2000. USS Olympia: Herald or lead unit of a related group—such as the of Empire. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute flagship station in a television firm. Press. Many famous flagships appear in histori- Goodwin, Peter. 2004. Nelson’s Victory: 101 Questions and Answers About HMS Victory, cal accounts. As a rule, in naval usage, the Nelson’s Flagship at Trafalgar 1805. London: flagship is either the largest fighting ship or Conway Maritime Press. one of that class. Britain’s Admiral Horatio Nelson’s Victory served as his flagship in the seminal Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The armored cruiser Olympia served as U.S. Fleming, John Ambrose Navy Admiral George Dewey’s flagship in (1849–1945) the battle with the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in 1898. The battleship Iron Duke was Sir Inventor of the vacuum tube, this long-lived John Jellicoe’s flagship at the Battle of Jut- English electrical engineer made possible the

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early modern era of radio communications The vacuum tube was quickly recognized by naval and military services. While he as a good detector of wireless telegraph or played no direct military role himself, he telephone signals and was improved in developed the device that, while modified important ways by Lee de Forest two years by others, became the basis of all electronic later. The “Fleming valve” or tube began the work for a half-century or more. modern era of electronics. He alerted Gugli - Born in Lancaster, England, on 29 Novem- elmo Marconi to his findings in October ber 1849, Ambrose (he never used his first 1904, noting that his device “opens up a name) Fleming earned a bachelor of science wide field for work,” a classic understate- degree in 1870 from the University of London. ment as it turned out. The patent was He undertook graduate work at the Univer- assigned to Marconi, and Fleming received sity of Cambridge and worked for a time at no direct financial gain for his breakthrough. the Cavendish Laboratory under James Clerk For years to come, he and de Forest would Maxwell, the first man to theorize the poten- feud over their respective roles in develop- tial of wireless communications. ing the vacuum tube. Fleming worked for the Edison Electric Fleming was widely published during Light Company of London from 1881 to 1891 more than a half-century of effort beginning and increasingly was also taking on work as with his first paper in 1883. In addition to a consulting electrical engineer. He became many other scientific articles and books, his the first professor of electrical engineering at The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy and his alma mater in 1885 and would serve in Telephony became a standard text and went that role for more than four decades. He through four editions from 1906 to 1919. He served concurrently as an adviser to the Mar- retired in 1926, at age seventy-seven. Late in coni Company, beginning in 1899 and con- his life, he was honored by many organiza- tinuing for a quarter-century. tions and was knighted in March 1929, the The effort that would lead eventually to same year he accepted the presidency of the the first vacuum tube began in 1882. This, new Television Society. Fleming died at the clearly Fleming’s most important single age of ninety-six on 18 April 1945 in Sid- innovation, was based on the initial electric mouth, England. lights of the late 1870s that had a similar Christopher H. Sterling appearance. Thomas Edison and others had See also de Forest, Lee (1873–1961); Edison, noted that when a light remained burning Thomas A. (1847–1931); Marconi, Guglielmo for some time, it often deposited a dark (1874–1937); Vacuum Tube residue on the inside of the glass lamp. The Sources “Edison Effect” was eventually traced to the Fleming, Ambrose. 1934. Memories of a Scientific tiny electric currents moving within vacuum Life. London: Marshall Morgan & Scott. inside the bulb. Fleming built on this and a Fleming, J. A. 1921. Fifty Years of Electricity: The series of experiments to develop what he Memories of an Electrical Engineer. London: (and the British to this day) call a “valve” Wireless Press. MacGregor-Morris, J. T. 1954. The Inventor of the and the rest of the world refers to as a vac- Valve: A Biography of Sir Ambrose Fleming. uum tube, the former perhaps better describ- London: The Television Society. ing the purpose (allowing the passage of Shiers, George. 1969. “The First Electron Tube.” electricity), the latter the nature of the device. Scientific American 220 (March): 104–112.

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Fort Gordon, Georgia the Vietnam War the renamed Southeastern Signal School (SESS) was the primary source Now the home of the U.S. Army Signal of personnel for tactical C-E units in Viet- Corps, Fort Gordon dates to the early World nam. In September 1965, the SESS activated War II years. With the threat of war looming the Signal Officer Candidate School (OCS). in mid-1940, U.S. Army officials began iden- By the time the last class ended in February tifying sites suitable for division-level train- 1968, more than 2,000 officers graduated ing. By 1941, a decision was made to acquire from Signal OCS. land near Augusta, Georgia, and the War The post-Vietnam years found the Army Department issued a $22 million contract to revising training, doctrine, and organiza- construct a new installation. At the ground- tion to keep pace with rapid technological breaking ceremony on 18 October 1941 the advances on the modern battlefield. It was a new camp was named for John B. Gordon, a period of reorganization that resulted in former Georgia governor and lieutenant consolidation of all signal training at Fort general in the Confederate Army. Gordon on 1 July 1974. The SESS was redes- During World War II the 56,000-acre train- ignated the U.S. Army Signal School and on ing site was temporary home to three divi- 1 October 1974 was redesignated the U.S. sions (the 4th and 26th Infantry and the 10th Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon. The Armored divisions) until they were sent to 1980s represented a transitional phase for Europe. From October 1943 to January 1945, the Army that deeply affected the Signal Camp Gordon served as a prisoner of war Center. The Signal Center’s efforts included camp. Following the war, Camp Gordon was development of mobile subscriber equip- scheduled to be inactivated, but renewed ment, the Army’s communications architec- emphasis on military preparedness during ture, and assumption of a lead role for the the Cold War affected the Army’s plans for Army’s Information Mission Area, which Camp Gordon. On 20 September 1948, the included the integration of automation, com- Military Police School moved to Camp Gor- munications, visual information, records don and on 1 October the Signal Corps Train- management, and publications and printing. ing Center (SCTC) was activated. Since that In June 1986 the U.S. Army Signal Corp Reg- time Camp Gordon has served as a crucial iment was established and Fort Gordon des- communications training installation for the ignated as the regimental home base. U.S. Army Signal Corps. In 1990–1991, the Signal Center played a In 1950 the demand for signalmen in the vital role in preparing soldiers for deploy- Korean War led to a major expansion of the ment during the Gulf War. In the 1990s SCTC, making it the largest single source of Fort Gordon became home for training Army communications specialists. On 21 most of the satellite operators and mainte- March 1956 Camp Gordon was redesignated nance personnel within the Department of Fort Gordon and made a permanent installa- Defense and continued to train signal troops tion. American involvement in Southeast Asia of allied and foreign countries. Today, Fort in the 1960s and 1970s, together with the Gordon serves as a power projection base for advances in communications-electronics several signal units responsible for conduct- technology (C-E), placed heavy training ing operations during the war on terrorism demands on Fort Gordon. At the height of and will continue to serve as the home of the

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U.S. Army Signal Corps into the twenty-first renegade Indians, Mexican bandits, and century. American outlaws. From 1913 into the early Steven J. Rauch 1930s, the 10th Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers” See also Army Signal Corps; Fort Monmouth, settled at Fort Huachuca to patrol the Mexi- New Jersey; Gulf War (1990–1991); Vietnam can border. In 1916 General John J. Pershing War (1959–1975); War on Terrorism joined the 10th Cavalry to command a puni- tive expedition into Mexico. The general Source was known for his admiration for the well- Command Historian. 1993. A History of Fort disciplined troops, known as the Black Troop- Gordon, Georgia. Fort Gordon, GA: U.S. Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon. ers, and acquired the nickname “Black Jack.” During World War II, the 92nd and 93rd black infantry divisions trained at Fort Fort Huachuca, Arizona Huachuca and the number of the troops at the fort reached 30,000 men, three times the Located near Arizona’s border with Mexico, level of a decade earlier. With the end of the after a long history of border patrol opera- war, the fort was transferred to the state of tions, Fort Huachuca has been a center of Arizona, only to be reactivated during the communications and intelligence operations Korean War. for a half-century. By 1954 the fort was controlled by the chief On 3 March 1877 two companies of the of Signal Officers as the outpost had been U.S. Army’s 6th Cavalry established a camp found to offer an ideal climate for electronic located in the heart of the Huachuca Moun- and communications equipment testing. In tains in southern Arizona, and named the 1967 it became the headquarters of the U.S. post after the mountain range. The camp Army Strategic Communications Command. was intended to protect settlers in the area The role and importance of Fort Huachuca and to block a traditional Apache Indian continued to expand, and in 1971 it became escape route to Mexico through the San home of the U.S Army Intelligence Center Pedro and Santa Cruz valleys. It was near and School. clean running water and wood used for fuel, Today, Fort Huachuca is the major military and was located on high ground for greater center in Arizona. It houses and supports security. missions of the U.S. Army Information Sys- In 1882 the Army made the camp perma- tem Command and the U.S. Army Intelli- nent, and as Fort Huachuca it began to change gence Center and School. The Fort Huachuca appearance with construction of durable facil- museum portrays the history of the U.S. ities made out of wood, stone, and adobe. In Army in the Southwest. early 1886 it provided a base for General Nel- Arthur M. Holst son A. Miles’s campaign against Geronimo, See also Mexican Punitive Expedition (1916– the last Apache leader. With the surrender of 1917); Strategic Communications Command Geronimo in August 1886, the Army closed (STRATCOM) many installations, but Fort Huachuca re- mained open due to continuous problems Sources “Fort Huachuca History” website. [Online along the Mexican border. information: retrieved June 2007.] In the years that followed the fort was http://huachuca-www.army.mil/ used by the Army in operations against the HISTORY/huachuca.htm.

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Fort Huachuca Museum website. [Online again became a training center during World articles retrieved August 2004.] http:// War II. Its various ranges and other facilities huachuca-www.army.mil/HISTORY/ were used by more than 200 units and museum.html. “I Sell Arizona!” website. [Online information: approximately 3.5 million soldiers between retrieved June 2006.] http://www.arizona- 1942 and 1946. The wartime peak personnel broker.com/Fort_Huachuca/page_88775 figure was reached in March 1945 when .html. 70,000 men were on-site. It was also the site of a prisoner of war camp. Fort Meade, Maryland Fort Meade reverted to routine peacetime activities after 1946. Second Army headquar- Though it became a military installation only ters were shifted to Fort Meade from Balti- upon American entry into World War I, Fort more in June 1947 (they later merged into George G. Meade is today one of the largest and became First Army). A decade later the military installations in the United States National Security Agency (NSA) moved its and serves as the home of the National Secu- headquarters from Arlington Hall to Fort rity Agency. Meade. From 1954 to 1962, Fort Meade Camp George G. Meade (named after the contained several Nike missile batteries victor of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863) first designed for the defense of the Washington- became an Army installation in 1917. As autho- Baltimore area. A Fort Meade museum was rized in May 1917, it was one of sixteen canton- formed in 1963 and became a permanent ments built for troops drafted for the war in part of the base a decade later. Europe. The 8,000-acre Maryland site, located In August 1990 Fort Meade began pro- roughly between Washington DC and Balti- cessing Army Reserve and National Guard more in Anne Arundel County, was then occu- units from several states in support of the pied by private farms and orchards. Actual Gulf War. Some 2,700 personnel from forty- construction began in July and the first contin- two units deployed from Fort Meade. Fort gent of troops arrived in September. Over the Meade continues to provide support and next two years, more than 100,000 men passed services for more than a hundred partner through Camp Meade, which served as a train- units, which include the Defense Informa- ing site for three infantry divisions, three train- tion School, which moved there in 1995; the ing battalions, and one depot brigade. Defense Courier Service; a number of both An attempt to rename the post Fort Leonard Army and Navy intelligence units; and a Wood in 1928 was overturned by Congress a combat camera unit of the Signal Corps. year later when the site became Fort George G. NSA occupies a major part of the grounds Meade on 5 March 1929. (An earlier Fort of Fort Meade. As NSA expanded its opera- Meade existed in Gulf Coast Florida from 1849 tions and more buildings were added to its to 1900 and has since become a town. There is complex, new roads were constructed con- also a Fort Meade recreation area and cavalry necting the buildings through a huge web of museum in the Black Hills of South Dakota. parking lots and access roads. Eventually Neither of these played a role in military com- nine roads were named for deceased Amer- munications history.) ican cryptologists. The National Cryptologic Between the wars, Fort Meade served as Museum occupies a one-time motel building headquarters of the new tank corps (the last just outside the NSA security area. armored units left only in 1967). Fort Meade Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Arlington Hall; Couriers; National The forerunner of the Army Air Corps Security Agency (NSA) (eventually the U.S. Air Force) had its roots at Fort Monmouth. Here in 1928 the first Sources radio-equipped meteorological balloon Fort Meade. [Home page information; retrieved June 2007.] http://www.ftmeade .army soared into the upper reaches of the atmos- .mil/. phere, an early version of a weather-sound- Fort George G. Meade Museum. Home page. ing technique universally used today. The [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] first U.S. aircraft detection radar was devel- http://www.ftmeade.army.mil/Museum/ oped here in 1938. Space communication Index.htm. was proven feasible when the Diana radar was used in 1946 to bounce electronic signals off the moon. The space age reached matu- Fort Monmouth, New Jersey rity thanks in part to key work done here to develop solar-powered batteries, modern Fort Monmouth has been the site of some teletypewriters for space shuttles, and com- of the most significant communications/ munications satellites. electronics advances in American military Over the last nine decades, the vast history. It served as the primary Army Signal majority of communications equipment used Corps base from after World War I to 1976, by American forces from field radios to when it relocated to Fort Gordon, Georgia. transmitters, receivers, walkie-talkies, switch - From carrier pigeons to frequency-hopping boards, mortar locators, and radar systems tactical radios, Fort Monmouth has been had its start here. home to important technological break- The Army Signal Corps rapidly estab- throughs. lished a presence with a training camp in The 1,344-acre installation that makes up 1917, a school two years later, the Signal Fort Monmouth is a far cry from the briar- Corps Board in 1924, and its laboratories five covered tract that greeted the first thirty-two years later. With the coming of World War II, Signal Corps soldiers in 1917. At the outbreak a Signal Corps Replacement Center was of World War I, the Army recognized the established in 1941, and a publications office need for expanded communications facilities. two years later. Finally, in 1949, the Signal Investigation led them to land that once Corps Center was established (including housed the old Monmouth racetrack, a engineering labs, the Signal Corps Board, potato farm at the time. It was ideal as it was the Signal School, Publications Agency, Intel- close to both river and rail transportation. ligence Unit, Pigeon Breeding and Training Originally named Camp Little Silver, the Center, the Army portion of the Electro Stan- installation was renamed Camp Alfred Vail dards Agency, and Signal Corps troop units). in September 1917 to honor the New Jersey The base was redesignated the Signal Corps inventor who helped Samuel Morse develop Center and Fort Monmouth. commercial telegraphy. The installation was From a tiny cluster of Army tents in a granted permanent status and renamed Fort clearing not far from the New Jersey sea- Monmouth in August 1925 to honor the sol- shore, Fort Monmouth became the home diers of the American Revolution who died of the Communications-Electronics Life - in the battle of the Monmouth Court House. cycle Management Command. The major

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organizations now located at Fort Mon- New Jersey. 2003. Fort Monmouth, NJ: Office mouth include the U.S. Army Garrison; of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and the Communications-Electronics Command Operations. Kozlowski, Melissa. 2004. Fort Monmouth (CECOM); the Program Executive Office for Landmarks and Place Names. Fort Monmouth, Command, Control and Communications NJ: Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Tactical; and the Program Executive Office Plans and Operations. for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sen- sors. Together these organizations are known as Team Command, Control, Communica- Fort Myer, Virginia tions, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Fort Myer, Virginia, located across the CECOM and its partners are charged with Potomac River from Washington DC, traces acquiring, developing, sustaining, and main- its origin as a military post to the Civil War. taining communications-electronic equip- It served as an important Signal Corps post, ment for the modern multiservice fighting an Army cavalry base, the site of the first man or woman (“joint warfighter”). This has flight of an aircraft at a military installation, included work with equipment such as and the home of U.S. Army chiefs of staff for command-and-control systems, situational the past century. awareness systems, sophisticated sensors, The land that would become Fort Myer and and electronic jamming systems. Arlington National Cemetery was seized by Wendy A. Réjàn the Union government when Confederate General Robert E. Lee, owner of the Arlington estate, was unable to pay property taxes in See also Army Signal Corps; Blair, William Richards (1874–1962); Global Command and person during the American Civil War (1861– Control System (GCCS); Greely, Adolphus W. 1865). The first occupants of what was initially (1844–1935); Identification, Friend or Foe named Fort Whipple were artillery and (IFF); Jamming; Joint Tactical Radio System infantry units helping to defend Washington. (JTRS); Military Affiliate Radio System The Signal Corps took over the post by the (MARS); Miniaturization; Mobile Communi- cations; Myer, Albert James (1828–1880); late 1860s because its high elevation made it Signal Book; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); ideal for visual communications. In 1881, Fort Squier, George Owen (1865–1934); Voice Relay Whipple was redesignated Fort Myer in honor of Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, the Sources Army’s first chief signal officer who served in Bingham, Richard. Famous Fort Monmouth that post from 1866 to 1880. The Signal Corps Firsts. [Online information; retrieved May 2006.] www.monmouth.army.mil/ continued to staff the post for five more years. historian/pubupdates/FortMonmouth In 1887, the communications units moved andTeamC4ISRFamousFirsts_May_2006 out and for two decades, Fort Myer became .doc. a cavalry post, playing an important part of CECOM and Fort Monmouth historical web - the official and social life in Washington. The site. [Online information; retrieved June first military test flight of an aircraft was 2006.] http://www.monmouth.army.mil/ historian/history.php. made from Fort Myer’s parade grounds in A Concise History of the Communications- September 1908. Orville Wright succeeded in Electronics Command and Fort Monmouth, keeping the plane aloft for one minute and

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eleven seconds. The second test flight ended Europe and expanded its air force to sub- with a tragic crash after four minutes in the stantial size during World War I had little air. Wright was severely bruised while his impact on World War II. While some of its passenger, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, early radio equipment was good, technology became the first powered-aviation fatality. alone could not overcome decades of politics Most of the buildings on the post were built and pessimism. Two colonial wars (in Indo- between 1895 and 1908. Many have been china and then Algeria from 1946 to 1962) designated historic landmarks. Fort Myer sapped the air arm and only in recent served as a military processing station dur- decades has it again become a modern fight- ing World War II, and the U.S. Army Band ing force. moved to Fort Myer in 1942. The French War Department began pilot Though only one battalion is active at Fort training in December 1909. In March 1910, Myer today, that known as the “Old Guard,” the Établissement Militaire d’Aviation it is the Army’s official ceremonial and secu- (EMA) was created to conduct experiments rity force in Washington DC. Fort Myer also with aircraft. The following month, the Ser- provides housing, support, and services to vice Aéronautique was formed as a separate thousands of active-duty, reserve, and retired air command comprising the EMA and bal- military personnel stationed in the national loon companies. Finally, the army formally capital region. Fort Myer’s current mission is established its own air force, the Aéronau- to operate the Army’s showcase community tique Militaire, on 22 October 1910. and to support homeland security in the As with many other nations, early French nation’s capital. flying during World War I centered on obser- Danny Johnson vation activities. The 1915 air battle over Ver- See also Army Signal Corps; Myer, Albert James dun was the first large-scale air battle ever (1828–1880) fought. With French observation and recon- naissance aircraft threatened by squadrons Sources of German fighters, French ground comman- Belcher, Nancy Hoyt. 2003. “Guarding History, ders were unable to react to German artillery Fort Myer, Next to Arlington Cemetery, is Home to the 3d Infantry Regiment, Formed fire and infantry maneuvers. After several in 1784.” St. Petersburg Times, May 25. weeks of intense air fighting, the French Bell, William G. 1981. Quarters One: The United slowly regained air superiority over Verdun. States Army’s Chief of Staff’s Residence, Fort This protracted battle can be seen as the birth Myer, Virginia. Washington, DC: Government of command and control in aerial warfare, Printing Office. Fort Myer Military Community Guide. 2005. for by this time the French air arm had begun Gaithersburg, MD: Comprint Military using radios to communicate between Publications. ground and air. At the armistice (11 Novem- ber 1918), the Aéronautique Militaire had some 3,225 frontline combat aircraft on the France: Air Force (Armée de l’Air) Western Front, making it the world’s largest air force. The story of French Air Force communica- The French air force took its modern tions is a varied one over its first four name, Armée de l’Air, in August 1933, decades. The nation that pioneered flying in though it remained under the jurisdiction of

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the army for another year. When the coun- equipped with British or American equip- try’s small aircraft companies proved inca- ment. French air units were active in the pable of producing what the growing air arm postwar Indochina fighting (1946–1954) and needed, the government stepped in. In July in the battle over Algeria (ending 1962). 1936 it began nationalizing the sector, creat- French air units operated during the 1990– ing six giant state-owned firms based on their 1991 Gulf War and again during North geographic locations. This included nearly Atlantic Treaty Organization actions in the all aeronautical production. But interservice Balkans in the 1990s. In the present French rivalry and political infighting stunted the air force, the Air Surveillance, Communi- modernization process. The result was an ill- cations and Information Command is equipped air force totally unable to face the charged with means of detection and com- modern German Luftwaffe. munication. The 9,000 men and women of Effectiveness of the French fighter and the command are spread among 155 units in bomber force in the face of the German attack France, in French overseas territories, and of May 1940 was reduced, among many fac- in foreign countries. Since 11 September tors, by poor communications that made 2001, the French air force has reorganized massing of squadrons impossible and coordi- and reinforced the air surveillance and early nation with fighter escorts problematic. Poor warning network under the responsibility liaison relationships between the French army of the Air Defense and Air Operations Com- and air force, coupled with slow communica- mand, and it has integrated it into multina- tions within the air force, led to many tional action. squadrons being held too long on forward Christopher H. Sterling airfields until they were nearly overrun by See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; German motorized units. Thanks to poor France: Army; Germany: Air Force; Gulf War radio communications, coordination between (1990–1991); United Kingdom: Royal Air the air force and army barely existed, espe- Force; World War I; World War II cially for such a war of movement. The French high command had neglected the preparation Sources of command/control/communications sys- Armée de l’Air. Home page. [Online informa- tion (in French); retrieved April 2006.] tems and thereby denied the air force the abil- http://www.defense.gouv.fr/air/. ity to integrate the efforts of its individual Cain, A. C. 2002. The Forgotten Air Force: French units. Air Doctrine in the 1930s. Washington, DC: With the 22 June 1940 armistice with the Smithsonian Press. Germans, surviving French air units broke Van Haute, Andre. 1974. Pictorial History of the into two conflicting camps: those who French Air Force: Volume 1 1909–1940; Volume 2 1941–1974. London: Ian Allen. escaped from France to fighting for De Gaulle’s Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres) and those flying for the French Armistice Air Force on behalf of the Vichy France: Army government (Armée de l’Air de Vichy). After the Allied landings in North Africa (Novem- France pioneered modern military commu- ber 1942), the latter ceased to exist. For the nication with its late eighteenth-century rest of the war, French air units were largely mechanical semaphore systems. During the

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Napoleonic Wars, French military communi- vice in the French army. By 1900 one engi- cations were the best in the world. Their role neers battalion specialized in telegraphy and over the next two centuries varied, though telephone and was to later become involved the French army of the early twenty-first in all forms of military signaling. On 30 century again uses the most modern sys- March 1912 another regiment of engineers tems. was created to provide telegraphists for In the early 1790s, the revolutionary France and North Africa and included a French government funded construction of wireless company. It became the parent reg- fifteen semaphore telegraph stations from iment for all new signal units. Wireless teleg- Paris north to Lille, each about 10 to 20 miles raphy was first used over long distances in apart and equipped with telescopes, cover- 1901 from France to Corsica and Martinique ing an overall distance of about 120 miles. to Guadeloupe in 1902. Further studies in The Claude Chappe–designed system was wireless were carried out from fixed stations placed into service in mid-1794 and rapidly at the Eiffel Tower, Verdun, Toul, Epinal, and showed its ability to carry messages far Belfort. The first mobile radio stations were faster than any means of transport. Soon used in Morocco in 1913. other lines were developed, including east to When World War I began in August 1914, Strasbourg (1798) and west to Brest and the now Colonel Ferrié was appointed to direct English Channel. Amsterdam, Milan, and French military radio communications. Venice (which could get a signal from Paris French army signals remained under the in about six hours) were all reached by 1810. control of engineer units throughout the war. Mobile versions of this system were adopted Field army telegraph services had two divi- by Napoleon in his military campaigns, and sions—one for communicating to the front, it remained in use until the 1840s. the other to the rear. Radio telegraphy came Conflict with Austria in the early 1860s under the control of the commander in chief. led to perhaps the first examples of laying A signal school was formed in 1923. Dur- electric telegraph cable rapidly (“on the ing the 1930s, the Maginot Line, a defensive run”) from specially equipped wagons. series of half-buried border fortifications These allowed the French commander to built to face Germany and Italy, included maintain links with his fighting forces on extensive internal telephone networks as the move. The central role of the telegraph well as telephone and radio telegraph links led to the formation of the Telegraph Brigade (featuring 250-watt transmitters), both to and the School for Military Telegraphy other forts and to nearby military com- (1868). During the Franco-Prussian War of mands. Major fortresses such as Hackenberg 1870–1871, the siege of Paris saw extensive operated their own telephone exchanges use of balloons to get people and messages (dubbed “pianos”). Some optical telegraphic across German lines. systems were also occasionally fitted. In 1942 In 1872 the Commission for Military Teleg- authorization was given for signals to raphy was created but not implemented become independent of the engineers in until 1884. The Central Depot was formed at occupied France and to form a new arm Mount Valerien in 1891 and commanded by known as L’Arme des Transmissions. During Captain Gustave-August Ferrié, who was the war, Free French forces generally used central in the development of the signal ser- British and American communications

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equipment. In the colonial wars that fol- to minimize the transmission capacity lowed in then French Indochina and in Alge- required. The army has adopted a three-level ria, most modes of communication were horizontal battle management system hierar- based on those from World War II. chy where the top level is SICF; the second The modern French army has long relied level is the Regimental Information System on information technology. The innovative (SIR); and the third level is the Battlefield ATTILA artillery automation program, Management System (SIT). The French launched by the Ministry of Defense in the approach is similar to British and German 1970s, was a precursor of battlefield digitiza- systems. Indeed, SIR was the product of a tion. Over the next decade the army pio- cooperative program with France, Germany, neered a variety of digital systems that the Netherlands, and Italy. Its design is inter- entered service in the early 1990s. The next operable with the French air force and navy, step was networking command information and with American, British, and German systems with radio communications and command-and-control systems. distributed sensors. These would deliver French army communications are de- real-time situational awareness shared by signed to support mission requirements on different levels of command, thereby speed- three levels. The first includes command and ing decision making and execution of orders. support of the top command to ensure inter- The French have embraced the concepts of connectivity with the various military and network-centric warfare emerging in the civil national networks within a national or United States. In its acquisition efforts, the multinational framework. Second is the plan- French army is concerned with three priori- ning, preparation, and support of forces in ties: command and information systems in interdepartmental operations with the army, relation to interoperability, intelligence sys- defense forces, or allies. This provides sup- tems, and equipment for crisis reaction port to metropolitan areas and defense agen- forces. Battlefield digitization is coming cies or other ministries with a permanent about with newly implemented systems. and reliable service of telecommunications Preceding the introduction of the Infor- and data processing. Third is the support mation System for Armed Force Command of communication information systems of (SICF) was the Réseau intégré de transmis- army and defense agencies, including design sions automatiques (RITA), which has been and technical studies to implement and to the primary French army tactical network maintain communication and information communication system. SICF manages infor- systems. mation exchange from an operation center The largest army communications unit is among several other centers. The system the Brigade of Transmission and Support to supports exchange of tactical information Command based at Lunéville with its six from corps to brigade levels. Combat radio is regiments and one battalion at Bretteville, central to the army combat communication Issoire, Thionville, Laval, Agen, and also in network from platoon up to regiment level. Lunéville. The brigade combines mobile SICF software operates through a network of communications and information systems computer terminals and standard military and is in charge of deployment and mainte- combat communications systems which are nance of tactical means of telecommunica- designed to reduce information quantity and tions (RITA-radio-satellite) and of associated

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information systems in external theaters of tion and the Electronic War. Home page. operation. There are two electronic warfare [Online information (in French); retrieved signals regiments at Mutzig and Haguenau. July 2006.] http://www.esat.terre.defense .gouv.fr/. One regiment is responsible for the commu- Scriven, G. P. 1915. “Notes on the Organization nication needs of the Ministry of Defense of Telegraph Troops in Foreign Armies.” The staff in Paris. There is a satellite communica- Service of Information, United States Army. tions regiment in Senlis and a signal battal- Circular No. 8. Washington, DC: Office of the ion responsible for army information Chief Signal Officer. Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. “France.” In The Old technology based in Orleans. France has four Telegraphs, 120–130. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & regional telecommunications and data pro- Littlefield. cessing centers as well as those in Paris and Wodka-Gallien, Philippe. 2004. “The French overseas locations of the army. Army in the 21st Century: Towards Network Training for French military communica- Centric Warfare.” French Army Chapter of tions begins with the École Supérieur of Association of Old Crows Newsletter No. 21 (May). Application of Transmissions at Rennes. The school provides initial officer training as troop commanders in tactical and strategic communications, and in electronic warfare. France: Navy (Marine Nationale) It also provides initial technical training of senior noncommissioned officers, soldiers, France has enjoyed a long naval history, per- and Ministry of Defense civil servants in haps second only to Britain’s Royal Navy. communications, electronic warfare, and Indeed, for much of their history, the two information technology. navies have been important rivals and often Danny Johnson, Cliff Lord, enemies. The French navy’s glory years came and Christopher H. Sterling in the days of sail where it was often at the See also Chappe, Claude (1763–1805); Ferrié, forefront of naval developments. Yet until Gustave-Auguste; (1868–1932); France: Air the seventeenth century, there was no stan- Force (Armée de l’Air); France: Navy (Marine dard means of signaling among French or Nationale); Maginot Line; Napoleonic Wars other ships at sea. (1795–1815); Semaphore (Mechanical By the late seventeenth century, however, Telegraphs); World War I standard methods of maritime signaling had Sources finally become established in the French, Defense Update. 2005. “SIR (Regimental Informa- Dutch, and English navies (the three most tion System).” [Online article; retrieved June important fleets of the time). They remained 2006.] http://www.defense-update.com/ products/s/sir.htm. little changed until after the fall of Napoleon Lattin, Jay D. B. 1930. “The Signal Service of the in 1815. When the ships were in port, day- French Army.” Signal Corps Bulletin 56 time signals were made with guns and by (September–October): 1–17. moving sails. At sea, flag signals were best Mary, Jean-Yves, and Alain Hohnadel. 2001. for communicating with the fleet, with guns “Les Transmissions.” In Hommes et Ouvrages being used to draw attention to the signal, de la Ligne Maginot, Tome 1, 120–126. Paris: Histoire & Collections. but only in the eighteenth century was the School of Application of Transmissions and system of employing small frigates to carry School of Information Systems, Communica- signals developed. In the seventeenth cen-

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tury orders were usually sent through the however, the French navy rejected the pro- fleet by boat. At night signals were made by posed adoption of a numerical system of sig- fastening lanterns in the rigging, burning naling (by means of a vote taken at each of false fires, and firing sky rockets. Fog signal- the naval bases) and continued using du ing was very limited in scope and was made Pavillon’s tabular system until after the end with guns, bells, and muskets firing in dis- of the Napoleonic Wars. tinct patterns. By the mid-nineteenth century, France had In 1738, a Frenchman, Bertrand-François again embarked on fleet expansion as navies Mahé de la Bourdonnais, devised the first experimented with the first metal-hulled numerical flag code, on which all later ships and the form of large-gunned naval development of flaghoist signaling was vessels changed more than at any other time. based. He assigned a different flag to repre- She launched Gloire in 1853 as the first major sent the numbers 0 through 9. With three ironclad ship of the line and achieved many sets of flags, a ship could make a thousand other feats though modes of intership com- different combinations of signals. Coupled munication remained the same flag systems with a dictionary assigning a meaning to used for decades. each combination, de la Bourdonnais’ sys- Only in the early twentieth century did tem would have permitted a marked France and Britain finally submerge their advance in the sophistication of naval com- long naval rivalry to commonly face a resur- munications. His idea was not adopted by gent Germany. A 1912 Anglo-French naval the French navy, but it was further devel- agreement gave France leadership of poten- oped a quarter-century later by another tial naval operations in the Mediterranean. Frenchman, Sebastian Francisco de Bigot In World War II, however, though having (founder of the French Marine Academy at many powerful and well-equipped vessels Brest, and also known as Vicomte de (the fleet was substantially rebuilt during Mogogues), who published Tactique Navale the interwar period), French naval forces ou Traite des Evolutions et des Signaux in 1763. played only a limited role because of the In addition to the ten number flags, Bigot rapid German victory over France in June prescribed predefined meanings for more 1940. The navy was thereafter often divided than 330 different hoists and added both a against itself. Under the Vichy collabora- preparatory flag to signal that a coded mes- tionist regime, elements of the French fleet sage was to be transmitted and a require- were moored in several bases in France and ment that the receiving ship acknowledge North Africa. A few sailed to work with the the signal. Allies, but most stayed put—some to be The French continued to develop their tac- attacked by the British (concerned that tical communication systems. In 1776 a Cap- French naval units would otherwise fall into tain du Pavillon introduced a signaling German hands) or were scuttled by their system using grid tablature to allow simpler crews in late 1942. Those few that survived two-flag hoists, flown where most easily relied heavily during the war on British and seen, to convey hundreds of messages. The U.S. electronics technology for their com- American Revolution saw the highest level munications, radar, and gun control. of competition between French and British French naval development during the fighting and signaling tactics. As late as 1806, Cold War reflected France’s changing needs.

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At first surviving elements and ships from enter service before 2010. In addition to car- Britain and the United States supported colo- rying helicopters and troops, they will also nial wars in Indochina and then Algeria. support crisis and humanitarian mission With Charles de Gaulle’s government (1958– management. The command centers on the 1968), a strong effort was made to build the two ships include 150 work stations, a fiber fleet into an important power independent optic internal communications network, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization satellite links, and considerable automation (NATO). By the early 2000s, the Marine to provide efficient task force command and Nationale was the largest European navy in control. terms of personnel and operated a wide Christopher H. Sterling range of fighting ships. See also Flaghoist; Flags; Napoleonic Wars In February 2004, several firms were (1795–1815); Night Signals; North Atlantic awarded a contract for a new naval command- Treaty Organization (NATO) Communica- and-control system. The system will be fitted tions & Information Systems Agency; Trafal- on the nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de gar, Battle of (21 October 1805) Gaulle as well as other vessels and shore loca- Sources tions and will allow the vessels to access Jenkins, Ernest H. 1973. A History of the French national or coalition command networks. Navy: From Its Beginnings to the Present Day. Likewise, the recent RIFAN secure Internet Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. protocol program represents a radical trans- Palmer, Michael A. 2005. Command at Sea: Naval formation for the navy, shifting the commu- Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- nications net to one based on Internet sity Press. protocol. Under the $60 million program, Taverna, Michael A. 2006. “Wind and Thunder.” nearly seventy ships will be connected over Aviation Week and Space Technology, April 10. a secure Internet protocol network designed Tran, Pierre. 2005. “Two Systems to Boost to provide a common operational picture. French Navy Interoperability.” C4ISR: The The services include voice over Internet pro- Journal of Net-Centric Warfare (October 31). tocol, e-mail, videoconference, and coopera- tive mapping on maneuvers. Both the SIC 21 command-and-control system and RIFAN Friedman, William F. (1891–1969) programs use commercial off-the-shelf tech- nology and international standards, repre- William Friedman was the most important senting a major shift in procurement for the American code breaker and trainer from the navy but one designed to provide maximum 1930s to 1950s and established much of the interoperability. The navy also is equipping scientific basis for wartime and postwar code itself with an upgraded tactical data link net- operations. work (Prisme), which will evolve to NATO’s Wolfe (later William) Friedman was born Link 22 standard. 24 September 1891 in Kishinev, Russia, and Early in 2006, the French navy was in the brought to the United States a year later. He final stages of placing two command ships, earned a bachelor’s degree in genetics at the Mistral and the Tonnerre, into service. Cornell University in 1914 and married They are designed for multiple tasks with Elizebeth Smith in May 1917. At the time the NATO High Readiness Force, which will both worked at Riverbank Laboratories,

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west of Chicago, researching a variety of He retired from the Army Reserve as a genetic and then taking on code-breaking colonel in 1951, and (after a heart attack) assignments from George Fabyan, the oper- from the National Security Agency in 1955, ation’s eccentric director. though he continued to consult on secret With American entry into World War I, projects for several more years. Two years Friedman became a code officer at American later the Friedmans coauthored a book on Expeditionary Force headquarters in France, their lifelong interest—the ciphers said by serving into 1919, and then returned to some authors to have been used by Shake- Riverbank for another year. He returned to speare. William Friedman was clearly intel- the military a year later, beginning as a cryp- lectually brilliant if psychologically insecure, tographer with the Army Signal Corps in and insisted on many fairly minor formali- 1921. During the 1930s, Friedman served ties—for example, he was always addressed with the War Department, where he essen- as “Mister” by even his closest colleagues. tially continued (but considerably improved Friedman died on 2 November 1969 in and expanded on) the code-breaking work Washington DC; his wife died 11 years later, Herbert Yardley had begun. He trained on 31 October 1980 in Plainfield, New Jersey. many of those who would play key roles in Christopher H. Sterling the coming war and authored several impor- See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code tant training manuals. The operation was Breaking; Electric Cipher Machine (ECM based in the War Department building in Mark II, “SIGABA”); Enigma; Magic; Washington DC, which moved out to Arling- National Security Agency (NSA); Nebraska ton Hall after the war began and more space Avenue, Washington DC; Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); was needed. Yardley, Herbert O. (1889–1958) Often cited as “the man who broke Purple,” the Japanese machine code intro- Sources duced in 1939, Friedman in fact headed the Callimahos, Lambros D. 1974. “The Legendary eighteen-month (1939–1940) team effort that William F. Friedman.” Cryptologic Spectrum 4: accomplished this task, soon dubbed (1). Reprinted in National Security Agency. 1992. The Friedman Legacy: A Tribute to William “Magic.” The strain was sufficient, however, and Elizebeth Friedman, 241–252. Fort Meade, that it caused a nervous breakdown and his MD: National Security Agency. temporary departure from current code- Charles, James R. 1987. “Breaking Codes Was breaking activities. By that time, however, this Couple’s Lifetime Career.” Smithsonian his well-trained and rapidly expanding June. Reprinted in National Security cadre of code breakers could continue their Agency. 1992. The Friedman Legacy: A Tribute to William and Elizebeth Friedman, work without a break. On Friedman’s re - 253–264. Fort Meade, MD: National Security turn to work in 1942, he became a civilian Agency. employee. He directed communications Clark, Ronald. 1977. The Man Who Broke Purple: (meaning code and code breaking) research The Life of Colonel William F. Friedman, Who for the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service Deciphered the Japanese Code in World War II. Boston: Little, Brown. from 1942 to 1949, and in the early 1950s Friedman, William F. 1935. Advanced Military served as a consultant to the subsequent Cryptography. Washington, DC: Government Army Security Agency and National Secu- Printing Office (reprinted by Aegean Park rity Agency. Press, 1976).

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Friedman, William F., and Elizebeth S. Friedman. 1957. The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. National Security Agency. 1992. The Friedman Legacy: A Tribute to William and Elizebeth Friedman. Fort Meade, MD: National Security Agency.

Fullerphone

Despite its name, the Fullerphone was not a telephone but rather a portable telegraph signaling device used in the British army during both world wars. It could be used over either telegraph or telephone lines and was exceedingly difficult for an enemy to overhear. The Fullerphone was, despite its name, a system of The Fullerphone was devised in 1915 by portable line telegraphy developed in the British army then Captain (later Major General) Algernon signals service in 1915. It transmitted over telephone Clement Fuller of the British Royal Corps of lines without interfering with those signals and was Signals to overcome the common use of difficult to overhear, making it ideal for the static earth induction to overhear communications trench warfare of the Western Front in World War I. in the closely packed trench warfare of (Courtesy Louis Meulstee) World War I. The commonly used trench buzzer signals could be detected at distances up to 300 yards and speech at 100 yards with Improvements in design continued (the only rudimentary equipment from enemy Italians copied the idea in the 1930s), with the frontline trenches. German listening posts Mark IV of 1939 being easier to use and carry. were soon routinely intercepting frontline It remained in widespread use during World conversations at ranges of up to 600 yards. War II, in part because it could be used over The resulting Fullerphone overcame this an operating telephone line without disturb- problem by using a very small amount of ing the voice service. An eight-stanza “Ode to direct current for signaling, making the the Fullerphone” was published in 1944 in potential range for overhearing its signals Jimmy, the Royal Corps of Signals magazine negligible. It first went into use on the West- in the Middle East. The Fullerphone was ern Front in late 1915 and was ordered in again used during World War II with subma- large numbers. Fullerphones eventually rine cables, achieving a workable range of replaced earlier equipment to the divisional 200 words per minute upward of 700 miles. and corps levels and were widely used (more The Mark V was combined with a telephone than 23,000 of them) by 1918. They were also and made for use in tropical regions while used on some submarine cable links. the ultimate Mark VI could be fully immersed in water and still used.

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The inventor of the device, Algernon Future Combat Systems (FCS) Fuller, was born in 1885 and joined the Royal Engineers in 1904. He began experimenting The U.S. Army is developing an early with wireless telegraphy two years later. twenty-first-century mobile combat capabil- He built a hobby (ham) wireless station ity—the Future Combat Systems (FCS)—that in Bermuda in 1908–1909 and designed a combines various land and air vehicles with wireless-controlled boat in 1909. He served a controlling communications network sys- with the wireless company of the Aldershot tem. The FCS is described as being at the command in 1910–1911. Fuller invented a core of Army modernization. The FCS net- means of electrical recording of speech as work, interconnecting the eighteen ground well as an automatic alarm signal for making and aerial vehicles (some of them un - a special call in the absence of a radio oper- manned), is the central element in the ser- ator in 1912. At the time he developed the vice’s multibillion-dollar program to build Fullerphone, he was serving as an experi- its next-generation fighting force. FCS also mental officer at the Signals Experimental underscores how vital communications has Establishment in Woolwich (London), where become to modern military systems. he remained until 1920. He was a member of The FCS network combines and integrates the Royal Engineers and Signals Board from information technology architecture, hard- 1920 to 1933; was chief inspector, Royal Engi- ware, software, the Joint Tactical Radio neers and Signals Equipment, Woolwich, System, and the Warfighter Information Net- from 1933 to 1937; and served as deputy work–Tactical system and intelligence sen- director of Mechanization at the War Office sors. The Army divides the FCS network into from 1938 to 1940. His service during World four parts: the System-of-Systems Common War II included director of Engineering and Operating Environment (SOSCOE); the com- Signals Equipment for the Ministry of Sup- munications and computer systems; the battle ply in 1940 and, for a period the next year, command software; and the intelligence, sur- deputy director general of the ministry. He veillance, and reconnaissance system. The retired from the service in 1941 and worked communications and computers network in civil defense for the remainder of the war. provides secure, reliable access to information Fuller died in 1970. sources over extended distances and complex Christopher H. Sterling terrain. The network will not depend on a See also Morse Code; Telegraph; Undersea large and separate infrastructure because it is Cables; United Kingdom: Royal Corps of to be embedded in the various vehicles, and Signals; World War I thus moving with combat units. This enables Sources the command, control, communications, com- Meulstee, Louis. 1989. “Fullerphone.” [Online puters, intelligence, surveillance, and recon- information; retrieved November 2004.] naissance network to provide superior battle http://home.hccnet.nl/l.meulstee/ command on the move to achieve offensive fullerphone/fullerphone.html. fast-moving operations. Priestly, R. E. 1921. The Signal Service (France). Central to FCS implementation is the Chatham, UK: W. & J. Mackay & Co., Ltd. War Office, General Staff. 1917. The Fullerphone, SOSCOE—containing some 35 million lines Its Action and Use. London: Darling and Son, of computer code—which supports multiple Ltd. mission-critical applications independently and simultaneously. SOSCOE enables

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straightforward integration of separate soft- tion management to ensure dissemination of ware packages, independent of their loca- critical information among sensors, proces- tion, their connectivity mechanism, and the sors, and fighters both within and outside technology used to develop them. SOSCOE the FCS-equipped unit. uses commercial off-the-shelf hardware and FCS project development began in 2000 a Joint Tactical–Army compliant operating with the Army and the Defense Advanced environment to produce a nonproprietary, Research Projects Agency; it was accelerated standards-based component architecture for in 2004, and the first component testing real-time, near-real-time, and nonreal-time began in 2006, with prototypes expected applications. within two years. Implementation of the first Battle command (BC) mission applications brigade is scheduled for 2014 with a pro- include mission planning and preparation, jected total cost of $200 billion for fifteen situation understanding, command and mis- FCS-equipped brigades. sion execution, and the “warfighter-machine Christopher H. Sterling interface.” These four software packages’ See also Defense Advanced Research Projects combined capabilities enable full interaction Agency (DARPA); Global Information Grid among the FCS-equipped battle units. BC (GIG); Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); capabilities will be common to, and tightly Mobile Communications; Vehicles and integrated into, the entire FCS network and Transport; Warfighter Information will share a common framework to achieve Network–Tactical (WIN-T) the long-desired goal of an integrated and Sources interoperable system with no hardware, soft- Department of the Army. “Future Combat ware, or information “stovepipes.” Systems (FCS).” [Online information; The FCS is connected to the command, retrieved June 2006.] http://www.army control, communications, computers, intelli- .mil/fcs/. GlobalSecurity.org. “Future Combat Systems gence, surveillance, and reconnaissance net- References.” [Online information; retrieved work by a multilayered communications and June 2006.] http://www.globalsecurity computers (CC) network with unprece- .org/military/systems/ground/fcs-refs dented range, capacity, and dependability. .htm. The CC network provides secure, reliable Tiboni, Frank. 2006. “Visualizing the Army’s New Tank: Why the Network is the Main access to information sources over extended Battle Piece in the Future Combat Systems,” distances and complex terrain. The network Federal Computer Week, at www.few.com/ will support advanced functionalities such as article93979-04-10-86-Print (accessed June integrated network management, informa- 2006). tion assurance, and information dissemina-

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German “Fish” Codes stantial amount of intelligence from Luft- waffe Enigma ciphers. “Fish” was Bletchley Park’s code name for Tunny incorporated two sets of five two advanced German teleprinter cipher mechanical wheels, with one set stepping machines, the Siemens & Halske T 52 irregularly, controlled by two “motor” wheels. series (called “Sturgeon” by Bletchley) and The wheels had 501 settable cams, which pro- the Lorenz SZ 40/42 (“Tunny”). Tunny was duced the equivalents of teleprinter “marks” used mainly between the German High and “spaces” and provided Tunny with a vast Command and army groups and often pro- number of cipher settings. The two sets of vided high-level intelligence. “Fish” also wheels generated streams of key (characters referred to a family of codes to which the used to encipher plain text), which were British assigned fish names (Tunny, Stur- added to Baudot-Murray teleprinter code to geon) for better coordination of the code- encipher it. breaking process. The intensive effort to Contrary to several accounts, Bletchley break the Fish codes led to the creation never saw a Tunny machine until the end of of Colossus, the world’s first semi- World War II. In an outstanding feat of crypt- programmable electronic computer. analysis, Bill Tutte, a young Cambridge Bletchley reconstructed several models of chemistry research student, deduced Tunny’s Sturgeon, which was used by the Luftwaffe, structure from key found by Colonel John and solved some coded messages, or traffic, Tiltman in August 1941. Bletchley’s research on them using “depths” (messages trans- section then helped to solve the complete mitted with identical machine settings). machine by January 1942. Just intercepting However, it decided to concentrate resources the high-speed radio Tunny signals posed on attacking Tunny, as breaking the German immense problems, however, and eventu- army’s Enigma was always very difficult, ally required more than 800 staff at the and Bletchley was already deriving a sub- Knockholt listening station in Kent.

179

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Depths, near-depths, and poor German to analyze data at 25,000 characters per operating procedures helped Bletchley to second. read most Tunny messages from June to Swedish cryptanalysts also reconstructed October 1942, when a simplistic indicating Sturgeon from mid-1940 onward, but did method was changed. The Germans knew not break Tunny until March 1943. They also about some of Tunny’s weaknesses and con- solved the traffic on both machines using stantly improved both the machine and its manual methods against depths. They inter- operating procedures. Being electromechan- cepted the traffic on Swedish teleprinter ical, Tunny could produce only a pseudo- landlines used by the Germans, which gen- random key, which enabled Bletchley to erally provided better copy than the some- exploit statistical characteristics in its traffic. times poor radio intercepts that Bletchley Tutte invented a statistical method for break- had to attack. ing single Tunny messages in November Between November 1942 and the end of 1942, but making the calculations manually the war, the Knockholt listening station inter- took far too long. Max Newman, a gifted cepted almost 168,000 transmissions, from Cambridge mathematician, therefore, pro- which Bletchley derived 13,500 decrypts posed fast machinery for the purpose. containing 63 million characters. Finding Dubbed the “Heath Robinson” after the Tunny’s wheel patterns and settings British cartoon equivalent of Rube Goldberg, required the highest cryptanalytical skills, it entered service in June 1943. It had few advanced statistical techniques, and the vacuum tubes and was not wholly success- design and construction of the first electronic ful, as it could not fully synchronize two computer, Colossus. Breaking Tunny traffic paper tapes being compared. Still, it revealed was therefore probably the greatest code- various problems with the machine breaking breaking feat of World War II. of Tunny, and consequently was vital to the Ralph Erskine subsequent success of Colossus, the special See also Bletchley Park; Code Breaking; purpose electronic computer developed to Enigma; Government Code & Cipher solve Tunny messages. School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Signals Intelli- Despite Bletchley’s skepticism and disin- gence (SIGINT); Teleprinter/Teletype; terest, T. H. (Tommy) Flowers and a Post Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982); Ultra; Y Service Office team including S. W. Broadhurst had worked on developing Colossus for almost a Sources year without any official requisition from Copeland, H. Jack, et al. 2006. Colossus: The Bletchley. Due to their foresight and dedica- Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers. London: Oxford University tion, Colossus I entered service in February Press. 1944. It ran a looped tape containing cipher Erskine, Ralph. 1988. “Tunny Decrypts.” text at 30 miles per hour, while its 1,500 tubes Cryptologia XII (1): 59–61. performed tests and emulated Tunny func- Gannon, Paul. 2006. Colossus: Bletchley Park’s tions to find Tunny wheel settings. Colossus Greatest Secret. London: Atlantic. “General Report on Tunny” [1945] Kew: II, with 2,500 vacuum tubes, entered service National Archives, Public Record Office, HW just before D-Day to provide crucial intelli- 25/4 and 5. gence about Hitler’s reactions to Allied Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. 1993. “Part deception plans. It used parallel processing Three: Fish.” In Codebreakers: The Inside Story

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of Bletchley Park, 139–192. New York: Oxford achieved by wireless telephone (voice) trans- University Press. mitters in the last year of the war, by which Wylie, Shaun. 2001. “Breaking Tunny and the time German efforts lagged behind those of Birth of Colossus.” In Action this Day, edited by Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, the Allies. 317–341. London: Bantam Press. Groundwork for a new independent Ger- man air force began in secret (because of 1919 treaty requirements) in the mid-1920s. Germany: Air Force German civil aircraft developed and often shielded military planning and training German air force communications were of efforts. German aircraft radio development superior quality at the start of both world continued between the wars, chiefly aimed wars, though they declined in capability at expanding airline operations and flying under the strain of sustained battle condi- clubs and schools. Secret training—including tions and the inability to effectively bring that for developing radio communications— improved designs into service. took place in the Soviet Union. The new Luft- Although the German army began exper- waffe was publicly announced in March 1935. imenting with airships it was slow to see the The Lufwaffe’s “Condor Legion” experience potential of aircraft. The German Army Air during the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War made Service was only formed in 1912 because the clear the importance of good radio communi- military authorities became concerned about cation between air and ground forces. the growth of the French Aéronautique Mil- Although hand signals had sufficed for inter- itaire as tensions rose in Europe. On the out- airplane communications in the past, German break of World War I in August 1914, pilots learned that air-to-air radio was now German aircraft were unarmed and were essential. Another lesson learned in Spain mainly concerned with artillery observation made the Luftwaffe place greater emphasis and reconnaissance. on development of navigational aids for both German aircraft began air-to-ground exper- bad weather and night operation. iments with wireless as World War I began. At the time of the invasion of Poland on Unique Morse code “sending tables” allowed 1 September 1939, signal units included operation by pilots or other air crew who did nearly 60,000 men (of a total Luftwaffe of not understand Morse code. Improved signal 370,000). German aircraft radio equipment detectors by 1915 greatly increased the effi- was well built and rugged, and generally ciency of German aircraft-mounted radios. stayed with prewar designs throughout the Power was obtained from a generator driven conflict. By 1944 the Luftwaffe Signal Service by the airplane’s propeller. After 1916, several employed 175,000 to 200,000 personnel and Telefunken transmitters were manufactured came under the director general of Signal to allow regular artillery spotting from the air, Communications, part of Hermann Goering’s using more than 300 ground stations and Air Ministry. The basic operational truppe of some 500 radio-equipped aircraft. Still later 10 to 120 men focused on a specific type of equipment, some of it based on vacuum tube signal activity (telephone, cable laying, etc.). transmitters by 1918, controlled better for On the other hand Luftwaffe signals secu- interference from other battlefield radio uses. rity was markedly lax (compared to the Experimental but not operational use was German army and navy) and Luftwaffe

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Enigma codes were among the first broken See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; (April 1940) by British code breakers at Bletchley Park; Britain, Battle of (1940); Bletchley Park. By June intercepted messages Enigma; Jamming; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Communications & provided the first information on the knicke- Information Systems Agency; Ultra; World bein air navigation system. The knickebein War I; World War II. (“crooked leg”) navigation technique was first used in the August–September 1940 Sources Battle of Britain, a blind-bombing system AOL Hometown. “Luftwaffe Ground Attack that utilized radio direction to assist aerial Radio Terminology.” [Online information; navigation. Operating on 30 MHz, it was retrieved November 2004.] http://members .aol.com/dheitm8612/attack.htm. based on the Lorenz blind-landing system Air Ministry. 1983. The Rise and Fall of the that had been pioneered in the 1930s. Pilots German Air Force, 1933–1945. New York: St. flew along one beam, dropping their bombs Martin’s Press (reprint of 1946 original). when they crossed a second beam. The “Battle of the Beams” website: http://www British developed means of locating the two .vectorsite.net/ttwiz7.html (accessed knicke bein transmitters and either jamming November 2004) Wood, Tony, and Bill Gunston. 1977. Hitler’s their signals or knocking them out from Luftwaffe: A Pictorial History and Technical the air. Encyclopedia of Hitler’s Air Power in World One of Hitler’s personal aircraft, a four- War II. London: Salamander Books. engine Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor transport, was equipped with a high-frequency short- wave transmitter from which messages were sent in Morse code. A long-wave transmitter Germany: Army was also fitted and the aircraft had both fixed and trailing antennas. Later in the war, more German military communications have for sophisticated German aircraft radio designs nearly two centuries reflected the country’s featured the ability to vary the frequency high-quality industrial technology. Germany used as well as either AM or FM modulation. was an early user of semaphore and then For more than a decade after World War II, electric telegraphy and telephony. Important there was, again, no active German air force. experimental work on wireless was under- From the mid-1950s (when West Germany taken by German pioneers Adolph Slaby joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- and George von Arco in the early 1900s. tion) to 1990 two German air forces were in Blessed with a superior electronics manu- place, one for each half of the country. By the facturing capability, as well as the central turn of the twenty-first century, however, role of the armed forces within both the the Luftwaffe communications network was Imperial (1870–1918) and later Nazi said to be the most modern in Europe thanks (1933–1945) governments, Germany even- to its new asynchronous transfer mode com- tually developed excellent military commu- munications network. The Luftwaffe Com- nication systems with superior equipment munications and Electronics Command that played a central part in both world reports through the Combat Command wars. Since 1945, German firms have been based in Münster. important providers of analog and later dig- Christopher H. Sterling ital military communications equipment.

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Line Communications of the war) were used aggressively, often A military semaphore telegraph system was laying lines under frontline conditions ahead established by the Prussian government to of many fighting troops. More than 7,000 connect Berlin and Koblenz, becoming fully miles of line were laid during the Franco- operational in 1833–1834. About 300 miles Prussian War. Telegraph troops proved long, it included more than sixty semaphore themselves indispensable and an effective stations, each 7 to 10 miles apart and means of military and political command, manned by a crew of two. These stations often on an hourly basis. were constructed on hills or atop tall build- The first military signal unit was created in ings, including churches. Each was fitted 1887 as part of an engineer battalion, and with a wooden mast using three pairs of became an experimental signal company in movable wooden arms, which could send 1896. On 25 March 1899, the independent about a thousand prearranged words or German signal corps was born, as on that symbols. Simple coded messages could be date the Telegraphentruppe was officially transmitted the length of the system in about formed. This organization comprised an fifteen minutes. Personnel were inducted inspector of telegraphs and three telegraph into the uniformed service, the system oper- battalions. A volunteer telegraph section was ated six hours a day, and it came under the provided during the Boxer Rebellion in China control of the Army General Staff. Parts of it in 1900–1901. A Bavarian telegraph company remained in service until 1852, when electric was formed in 1901, and a year later a tele- telegraphy took over. (Several of the towers graph detachment for the Airship Battalion survive to this day.) was created in Berlin. Two field telegraph Field telegraphs were introduced into the detachments and two wireless detachments Prussian army on 21 August 1856. Two and a signaling section were deployed in Ger- mobile field telegraph detachments, each man Southwest Africa during the Herero with three sections of the Pioneer Guard, Rebellion of 1904. Signaling in the Airships were created that year. Between 1870 and Group became a Telegraphentruppe respon- 1871, seven field telegraph and five lines of sibility from 1905. All of these units faced a communication telegraph detachments were difficult time due to the general military scorn in operation. Prussia (later part of Germany directed at the relatively new and largely vol- and today mainly incorporated into Poland) unteer (and nonfighting) signals units. The and Bohemia (today part of the Czech emphasis of many senior officers was more Republic) first utilized field telegraphy units on how to turn signals personnel into fighting to coordinate troops during their fighting men rather than concern for tactical, let alone in 1864. By the time of the larger Franco- strategic, communication links. By 1910, the Prussian War of 1870–1871, Prussia had three German army decided the telegraph was different telegraph units, one operating civil- obsolete, planning to rely on the telephone for ian lines captured from the French. Many of virtually all of its communications. Germany’s domestic state telegraph lines were buried rather than strung on poles; this World Wars organization provided personnel and equip- Ten signals battalions were being modern- ment to the fighting forces as needed. Field ized when World War I began. The Tele - telegraph detachments (a dozen by the end graphentruppe had a strength of 550 officers

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and 5,800 men, which after mobilization rose impending Battle of the Marne that halted to 800 officers and 25,000 men. Despite its the German advance before Paris. size, however, the Telegraphentruppe was The Germans did learn from this experi- still insufficient to guarantee telegraphic com- ence, reinstating use of the telegraph, adding munications between all forces and head- a motor courier dispatch service, increasing quarters, due in part to the rapid advance of the size of the signals force, and reversing the German units over great distances. It was order of communications responsibility to quickly recognized that the Telegraphen- match that of the Allies—from superior to truppe was unable to meet the demands of inferior units. From August 1914 until May the army and was partly responsible for the 1916, more than 25,000 miles of permanent failure of the war’s opening offensive. Tight line and 3,000 miles of cable and under- secrecy over the overall German plan of ground cable were provided to the 10th attack (the von Schlieffen scheme to move in Army facing Russia. The army signals corps a massive scythe through Belgium and into was reorganized and renamed Nachrichten- northern France) retarded development of truppe in July 1917. By then the German com- any effective role for signals communication. munications network covered nearly 600,000 While railway engineers were ready to miles. By the end of World War I, more than rapidly replace battlefield infrastructure 4,000,000 miles of line had been supplied by losses, no similar planning was evident for the signals corps and army command had replacing or constructing signals links. exchanges with 600 subscribers. The signals During the initial August 1914 attack, tele- corps had a strength of 4,400 officers and graph and telephone lines were rapidly 185,000 men. Indeed, German signals forces overwhelmed thanks to this lack of plan- had grown to 4.3 percent of the total army— ning and coordination (let alone destruction a vast expansion from the 1 percent at mobi- caused by the fighting). Most units lacked lization. Their huge and complex network radios given the earlier decision to depend enabled General Erich Ludendorff to contact on telephone services. Signals units often Constantinople and Bucharest from his spe- lagged far behind the lines, making effec- cial train at a railway station on the Western tive control of the battle extremely difficult Front. Each German army controlled its own and forcing use of traditional courier and communication links from the front line back other means of signaling. During the early to the German border. German subordinate August 1914 siege of Liege, for example, the signals units were responsible for communi- German High Command was unaware for cating up to their superiors (or “front to three days that the city had been occupied by rear”). But as critiqued after the war, the Ger- its forces. Many fast-moving frontline ele- man system lacked flexibility, in part because ments exceeded the ability of hard-pressed officers could be assigned to other units, and undermanned signals units to maintain often bringing untrained personnel into sig- connections to higher command, in part for nals operations. Though a third of the quar- a lack of redundancy in communication ter-million men in the imperial post and facilities. Where radio was operating and telegraph department were drafted into the available (typically only at high command military when the country mobilized, mar - levels early in the war), it remained slow kedly few found their way to signals units. due to the need to encode and decode mes- Telefunken was the primary supplier of sages. All of these factors were crucial in the telegraph/telephone equipment to German

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forces and had developed a mobile wireless munications, cable communications, satel- transmitter wagon by 1911. By 1915 Tele- lite communications, graphics transmission, funken had perfected a short-range (up to and fax connections. By the turn of the 2,500 feet) spark transmitter for wireless teleg- twenty-first century, the German army Sig- raphy signaling in trench warfare. Upward of nal Corps was split between the army and 200 sets would typically be operating along the Joint Support Service. The former sup- about 30 miles of the front line. Improved ports (mobile) tactical or operational com- receivers from Siemens & Halske allowed use mand, while the latter provides national of several different channels. A Telefunken strategic command communications and tube-powered transmitter arrived in 1917, communication links between Germany and used by both land and air forces. By then, military theaters elsewhere. Army tactical excellent connections were maintained with and strategic communications units are army command as well as Berlin. employed in some multinational North Seventy-one signal detachments were in Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) units. place by 1939. The ability to communicate The Bundeswehr also provided combat and and command was largely responsible for the communications support to the Franco- early success of the German army in World German Brigade of the Euro Corps formed War II. German tanks used radio and were in 1990. During 2000–2002, the corps became thus more flexible than the Allied forces. Ger- a High Response Force for NATO. man radio equipment, having been designed These units all employ the German in 1936 to 1940 for use in a mobile army, AUTOKO 90 (the Mobile Automated Com- changed little during the war. Thus, though munication Field Net). It is a digital, mobile, uniform in design and operation, it did not gridlike, automated network with trunk improve with new knowledge. Equipment nodes and access nodes. The system consists was robust but not easily modified. An excel- of communication junction boxes and nodes lent Telefunken tank radio was developed by that are intermeshed by tactical wire/radio 1937, and its effective use in two-way tank relay links, satellite links, and/or terrestrial communication played an important part in transmission lines (leased, if required, from German armored victories at least into 1943, commercial providers), and provides digital when Allied designs caught up. World War II transmission lines with full-dial service. German radio links utilized the Enigma cod- AUTOKO 90 allows encrypted voice, tele- ing machine (or more advanced “Fish” type, facsimile, and data transmission. teleprinter machines), many of whose code Another German system is the Integrated systems were increasingly read by the Allies Broadband System for Command Communi- after 1940. cation Systems. This is a digital system match- ing the EUROCOM standard and is based on Since 1945 fiber optics. It is the digital local area part of Postwar army communications history dates AUTOKO 90 and enables command posts to to 1956 when the German military was re- use both analog and digital terminal equip- formed. German army (Bundeswehr) signal ment. The Terrestrial Trunked Radio system is (fernmelde) units were soon responsible for accommodated in commercial hand-carried voice transmissions, telephone, teleprinters, containers and is used to network single radio, radio relay links, and later data com- mobile subscribers within small areas. It

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integrates these mobile subscribers into the Chauvin, Maj. Gen. 1884. “The Organization of “system of systems” and so enhances the the Electric Telegraph in Germany for War command and control over mobile forces in Purposes.” Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 28: 777–808, 1051–1064. the area of operations. The Bundeswehr satel- Evans, Paul W. 1935. “Strategic Signal lite communications system does not yet Communications: A Study of Signal operate a space segment (satellite) of its own, Communication As Applied to Large Field therefore needed circuits are leased from civil- Forces, Based upon the Operations of the ian satellite communication providers (e.g., German Signal Corps During the March on Paris in 1914.” Signal Corps Bulletin 82 INTELSAT or EUTELSAT). Finally, the army (January–February): 24–58. mobile Command, Control and Information Hofman, Helmut. 2005. “The German Army System for digitally supported Command of Signal Corps and Its Equipment.” Military Operations in Staffs system is deployed by the Technology June/July. In German. Bundeswehr operating in Germany and LA6NCA. “LA6NCA’s WW2 Radio Page.” within multinational organizations. It assists [Online information; retrieved November 2004.] http://www.laud.no/ww2/. the command process from the corps down to Porter, Jack J. 2004. “Signaling, Sociology and brigade level. Structure: Designing German Military Danny Johnson, Cliff Lord, Institutions, 1949–1999.” Ph.D. diss., Univer- and Christopher H. Sterling sity of California, Berkeley. Radio News. 1944. “Captured Enemy See also Baltic Nations; Eastern Europe; Equipment.” 1944. Radio News Special Issue: Enigma; European Late Nineteenth-Century U.S. Amy Signal Corps 31 (2): 163–173. Wars; German “Fish” Codes; Germany: Air Showalter, Dennis. 1973. “Soldiers as Postmas- Force; Germany: Military Communications ters? The Electric Telegraph as an Instrument School; Germany: Navy; Marne, Battle of of Command in the Prussian Army.” Military (September 1914); North Atlantic Treaty Affairs 27: 48–51. Organization (NATO) Communications & U.S. War Department. 1944. Signal Communica- Information Systems Agency; Polish Code tions Equipment Directory. German Radio Breaking; Tannenberg, Battle of (1914); Ultra; Communications Equipment. War Department Warsaw Pact (1955–1991); World War I; Manual TM-E 11–227 (June). Washington, World War II. DC: U.S. War Department. U.S. War Department. 1945. “Signal Sources Equipment.” In Handbook on German Military Arnold, Wilhelm. n. d. “Signal Communications Forces. War Department Technical Manual in the Pocket of Stalingrad and Communi- TM-E 30–451 (March), 434–477. Washington, cations with the Outside.” [Online informa- DC: U.S. War Department. tion; retrieved November 2004.] http:// Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. “Germany.” In The Old users.pandora.be/stalingrad/battle Telegraphs, 159–165. London: Phillimore. _reports/signal_communications.htm. Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. Bundeswehr. Official home page of the German Germany: Military army. “Locations of Communications Troops Communications School in Germany.” [Online information (in German); retrieved April 2006.] http:// German military signals training dates back www.deutschesheer.de/portal/a/heer/ to the Prussian army in the late nineteenth kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y century and has been through many reorga- _QjzKLd483N_AFSYGYZu7m-pEwsa CUVH1fj_zcVH1v_QD9gtyIckdHRUUARL nizations, especially during and after the two e1AQ!!/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQ world wars. For the past half-century, what UFzQUMvNElVRS82X0dfNzBW. is now the Communications School and Tech-

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nical School of the Army for Electro-Tech- quired civilian vocational certification. In nology (FSHElT) has provided telecommu- 1999, the Luftwaffe technical school was nications and information training for the transferred to FSHElT. Training for technical German army. assistants was initiated, as was training of The Reichsschule (Realm School) Feldafing officer candidates for service in army and was located in a 1912-era country house on navy computer science. Lake Starnberg (once owned by renowned Given the continuing transformation of the author Thomas Mann). After Hitler’s rise to German armed forces, communications train- power, it was converted into a private school ing is constantly being revised and updated for Nazi storm trooper leadership. The school as qualified information technology person- was dissolved at the end of World War II, nel are essential for all military services. Ger- and U.S. occupation forces converted the for- man industry has strong demand for those mer Reichsschule into a camp for displaced trained in communications support, such as persons. The camp was closed in 1951 when satellite communications. the revived German army resumed opera- The location of FSHElT will transfer to tions in the building (in 1999 it was converted Poecking by 2011 and the current school into a Nobel Prize literature museum). facilities in Feldafing will be sold. The modern German military communica- Danny Johnson tions school was provisionally organized on See also Germany: Army 24 June 1956 at Sonthofen (in the Bavarian Alps) as the Troop School Communications Source Feldafing Fernmeldeschule, Germany. [Online Troops. That summer it became the Fern- information: retrieved April 2006.] meldeschule (Signal School) of the army. Plans http:// www.gebb-mbh.de/Projekte/ were put in motion for the permanent sta- Immobilien/ Portfolio/Bayern/Liegen tioning of the school in the Bavarian villages schaften_in_Feldafing/Fernmeldeschule of Feldafing and Poecking, some 20 miles _Feldafing.html. southwest of Munich. The Reichsschule has changed a good deal in the half-century since, as buildings and organization accom- Germany: Naval Intelligence modated changes in training. Initially, the (B-Dienst) school was exclusively responsible for the communications telephone service and, The German Radio Monitoring Service of increasingly, various modes of electronic World War I continued as a small operation warfare. Curriculum was reorganized in (about twenty people) into the 1920s and 1972 when the school became the FSHElT. 1930s. A number of listening stations (suffi- This soon became nationally recognized cient for effective direction finding as well as within Germany for the quality of its techni- listening) were built along the coast of the cal education. More recently FSHE1T devel- North Sea and the Baltic Sea, connected by oped into a center of training and direct telephone cables and telex. advancement in information transfer and Intelligence formed one of the six Ger - data processing. man navy war staffs during World War II. Students are typically new officers in the Cryptologic intelligence was the task of the technical branches of one of the services Naval Communications Intelligence Divi- or noncommissioned officers who have ac- sion, generally referred to as the Beobachtung

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Dienst (B-Dienst), or Observation Service, the code-breaking process, using punched- which focused on radio intercepts and card machines to attack the Allied codes. decoding. Even at its peak, B-Dienst was smaller B-Dienst began to study British naval than Allied code-breaking efforts. In 1944 it codes in 1936. It achieved an early success in operated about fifty intercept stations and the spring of 1940 when it decoded a British had perhaps 5,000 personnel (including message outlining Royal Navy plans to mine about 275 cryptanalytic staff)—about half the Norwegian coast. That enabled a radio the staff of Bletchley Park and less than half deception plan that masked true German of that at Arlington Hall. B-Dienst personnel intentions (to raid the south coast and considered traffic analysis as important as occupy Oslo), allowing the weaker German cryptanalysis. Radio direction finding, for naval forces to outwit the stronger Royal example, was simply a part of overall intel- Navy, which was focused on the northwest ligence, rather than target acquisition as it coast as B-Dienst had intended. Capture of was for the Allies. B-Dienst issued the Radio some British naval codebooks in mid-1940 Intelligence Bulletin regularly to disseminate opened up the convoy and merchant marine its findings. coded communications systems, allowing The German army and the Foreign Office successful U-boat attacks. The Allies unwit- maintained their own code-breaking opera- tingly contributed to this weakness by not tions as well, as did the Luftwaffe after its changing codes often enough and sometimes formation in 1935. But the services took a dif- sending the same messages using different ferent approach to the code-making process, codes, a windfall for German code-breaking with the navy observing the best levels of efforts. Only in June 1943, months after find- secrecy for its main Enigma ciphers and ing out that their convoy code was being introducing a four-rotor Enigma machine. read by the Germans, did the British change While B-Dienst and other units experienced the code (in June and again in October 1943), considerable success early in the war, with thus locking out German code breakers. the introduction by the Allies of the SIGABA, Some German U-boats were equipped Typex, and combined cipher machines, the with two-man teams trained by B-Dienst to Germans were unable to read high-level intercept voice communications and radio Allied coded messages. Allied bombing direction finding. On several occasions these effectively disrupted most B-Dienst activities teams listened in to low-grade Allied convoy even before the end of the war in Europe. communications, which aided their attack Christopher H. Sterling plans. See also Arlington Hall, Bletchley Park; Code B-Dienst was divided during World War II Breaking; Electric Cipher Machine (ECM into five sections: a main evaluation and Mark II, “SIGABA”); Enigma; German intelligence center, a unit focused on decod- “Fish” Codes; Germany: Navy; OP-20-G; ing British signals, another working on Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra American signals, one dealing with Soviet Sources codes, and a training school. Germany also Bray, J. K. 1995. Ultra in the Atlantic, Vol 3. sought personnel with seagoing experience, German Naval Communications Intelligence. while the British used many civilians. Only Walnut Creek, CA: Aegean Park Press. late in 1942 did B-Dienst mechanize any of Gordon, Don E. 1981. “German Cryptology.” In Electronic Warfare: Elements of Strategy and

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Multiplier of Combat Power, 47–52. New York: four cruisers when they were ambushed by Pergamon. a stronger British naval force. Kahn, David. 1978. Hitler’s Spies: German Early in World War I, the German light Military Intelligence in World War II. New York: Macmillan. cruiser Magdeburg ran aground near the Showell, Jak P. Mallmann. 2003. German Naval island of Odensholm and could not be Code Breakers. Annapolis, MD: Naval refloated. Her loss gave the Allies a huge Institute Press. gift of the German signaling codes. She was carrying three copies of the SKM codebooks, and two of them were taken by the Russians, Germany: Navy one shared with the British Admiralty. There, Room 40 code breakers set to work, enabling German naval forces were weak and disor- the Allies to read most German naval mes- ganized and played no important role prior sages for the remainder of the war. This abil- to the early twentieth century. With its huge ity provided a vital early warning that the buildup after 1900, as with the army, the German High Seas Fleet was “coming out” German fleet benefited greatly from the at the end of May 1916, enabling the British country’s excellent radio research and man- Grand Fleet to engage the Germans in the ufacturing capability in both world wars. Battle of Jutland. German fire control com- German radio equipment was among the munications improved steadily, especially best produced anywhere and fleet elements after Jutland in 1916. constantly practiced in its use. Crude though it then was, airborne radio In the period just before World War I, Ger- was vital in communicating with naval Zep- many completed a worldwide network of pelins. From the inception of the war, Zep- wireless shore stations to communicate with pelins carried Telefunken spark transmitters its naval and merchant fleets. The 200 kilo- (despite the danger with the hydrogen-filled watt high-frequency station at Nauen (just gas bags) that used low and medium fre- outside Berlin, then the most powerful in quencies and often trailed 100-foot or longer the world) was used in August 1914 to warn aerials. These were heavy modified ship- German merchant shipping worldwide to board transmitters installed in soundproof seek German or neutral ports. But German cabins. Some of the navigation signals could stations elsewhere—including several pow- be picked up by the Allies, however, who erful shore transmitters on the East Coast of would then seek and shoot down the huge the United States—were taken over by the airships. U.S. Navy in 1915. In 1914–1915 other Ger- After the war, the Naval Communications man naval shore stations at Kamina Research Establishment (it became a com- (Togoland), Windhoek (southwest Africa), mand in 1938) was established at Kiel. Sec- and Zanzibar (African coast) fell to Allied tions of it began to investigate what became force attacks, as did scattered wireless trans- sonar and radar, as well as general commu- mitters on several Pacific islands, mainly to nications technology. The navy itself was Australian or Japanese forces. Just such a reconstituted as the Kriegsmarine in 1935. raid in December 1914 by Admiral Maximil- With the vital exception of its U-boat fleet, ian Graf von Spee on the (British) Falkland however, the German navy played a smaller Islands wireless station led to the loss of his role in World War II than in World War I. Other than early sorties of some of its battle-

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ships (e.g., Graf Spee and Bismarck, both of At the end of World War II, the detailed which were lost, the latter thanks to a radio May 1945 instructions from General Dwight signal breaking what had been effective Eisenhower’s headquarters to German naval radio silence, as well as Allied radio direc- officials emphasized communications re- tion finding), German surface units had lit- sources to be identified and turned over to tle overall impact. the Allies—a final indication of just how The submarines were another matter, and important those facilities had been. their role was either enhanced or badly lim- Since the 1990 reunification of Germany, ited (authorities differ) by the use of radio to the Naval Communications and Electronics vector them in “wolf packs” to Allied con- Flotilla complements all the capabilities of voys. Central command and control of the the German fleet. It is responsible for the U-boat fleet was initially hugely successful coastal radar stations, communications facil- and relied totally on radio in one of the most ities ashore, and three intelligence-collection successful examples of naval communica- vessels. A German submarine flotilla is once tions. German shortwave radios were less again active in European and Atlantic susceptible to direction finding by the Allies waters. And as with other navies, the Ger- than earlier long-wave radio equipment. The mans are integrating Internet links with importance of radio links to direct the wide- other modes of communication with their spread German submarine force is made evi- Maritime Command, Control and Informa- dent by the use of the most powerful very low tion System development. frequency transmitter of the period—the Ger- Christopher H. Sterling man Goliath station located by the Elbe River See also Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945); near Magdeburg. Built in 1941, this antenna Enigma; Jutland, Battle of (1916); North was capable of up to two million watts, strong Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enough to send signals to submarines as far Communications &Information Systems away as the Indian Ocean. This monstrous Agency; Radio; Ultra; World War I; World War II antenna was composed of some 200 miles of steel wires for the in-ground array (steel was Sources used due to the shortage of more efficient Bauer, Arthur O. 2004. “Aspects of the German copper), and was built in a swampy area to Naval Communications Research Establish- generate an even stronger signal. It could ment.” [Online article; retrieved August 2005.] http://www.xs4all.nl/~aobauer/ transmit signals as much as 80 feet below the NVK.pdf. surface of the water. Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power. The entire system relied, however, on Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein & Day. communications security. The Kriegsmarine, and especially the submarine corps, was far more careful about its use of the Enigma Global Command and Control cipher equipment than was the Luftwaffe. System (GCCS) Still, breaking of the Enigma codes after 1940, and especially those used in U-boat The Global Command and Control System signals by 1943, was a key factor in growing (GCCS) is the Pentagon’s comprehensive U-boat losses and the eventual Allied win in automated information network system pro- the Battle of the Atlantic. viding data for strategic command and con- trol. In 1996 the GCCS replaced its existing

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version—World Wide Military Command IP Router Network with routers provided and Control System—which had been in use by Cisco Company. The GCCS uses a set of since the 1970s. integrated software applications operating The GCCS is one of the significant ele- on common operating environment hard- ments driving the transformation of the ware. There are three basic communication American military under the catch phrase of modes: one-way query, one-way data, and “Information Revolution in Military Affairs.” two-way data. Commanders can, for exam- It is thought to be a single, predominant sys- ple, create their own home pages and com- tem of global reach for gathering, receiving, municate through e-mails within the GCCS sharing, processing, and using military infor- classified system. mation. The GCCS is the main provider of The greatest challenge for the effective surveillance and reconnaissance information functioning of the GCCS and its develop- (data, imagery, intelligence, status of forces, ment is the interoperability and integration enemy order of battle, air tasking orders, of command and control systems into a sin- meteorological, oceanographic, etc.). It corre- gle broad and interoperable system. Special lates and merges data from various sensors and demanding standards were introduced and intelligence sources. The GCCS is thus to meet this challenge, namely the Joint the real “system of systems” for military Interoperability Test Command, which tests command and control and the cornerstone and certifies the interoperability of com- for American information superiority over mand, control, communications, computer, its enemies as expressed in the U.S. Depart- and intelligence (C4I) systems before their ment of Defense’s Joint Vision 2020. Through integration with the GCCS. its workstations it supplies the Joint Staff The GCCS is one of the first steps in the with a real-time picture of changing battle- wider Pentagon project called “C4I for the space. The GCCS works toward greater inter- Warrior.” Its goal is to merge all major ele- service “jointness” by enabling commanders ments of command, control, communications, to orchestrate actions of air, land, sea, and and intelligence in a single communication space forces. At the same time, however, the network encompassing all the existing mili- individual military services have developed tary communication systems in the U.S. mil- particular components for the GCCS that itary. The C4I for the Warrior aims to extend its functionality to address specific accelerate the flow of information across the requirements of the Army (GCCS-A), Navy battlefield and between higher and lower (GCCS-M), Marine Corps (MAGTF), and Air command centers. The implementation of Force (GCCS-AF). The GCCS’s cobweb links the project will allow for unprecedented numerous information systems for various rapid military communication and for total missions, namely, force projection and battlespace information to the warfighter for employment; situational awareness; force any mission, at any time, and at any place. sustainability, readiness, and protection; and The GCCS can be seen as either the midterm intelligence. solution for C4I for the Warrior or as the first The GCCS consists of common hardware, phase for building such a globally connected operating systems, and software. It uses clas- and fully integrated system. sified units of the Defense Information ?ukasz Kamie?ski Systems Network for connectivity. The com- See also Defense Advanced Research Projects munications backbone of GCCS is the Secure Agency (DARPA); Defense Information

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Systems Agency (DISA); Global Information ground-based and fixed systems and equip- Grid (GIG); Information Revolution in ment. It will require a new series of transi- Military Affairs (IRMA); “System of tional military communications satellites that Systems”; World Wide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) can carry larger volumes of data (the first is to be launched in 2011), the new interoperable Sources Joint Tactical Radio System (which will be Department of Defense. 1996. Joint Vision 2020. fielded in 2007), state-of-the-art optical net- Washington, DC: Government Printing working systems, new modes of signal secu- Office. Fredericks, Brian. 2002. “Information Warfare: rity (being developed by the National The Organizational Dimension.” [Online Security Agency), and improved network- article; retrieved December 2006.] http:// centric systems across the board. www.ndu.edu/inss/siws/ch4.html. One element of the larger program, the Joint Interoperability Test Command. 2005. GIG Bandwidth Extension (GIG-BE), has “Global Command and Control System (GCCS) Interoperability (IOP) Home Page.” been designed to provide a secure, robust, [Online information; retrieved December optical terrestrial network that delivers 2006.] http://jitc.fhu.disa.mil/gccsiop/. very-high-speed classified and unclassified Internet protocol services to key operating locations worldwide (nearly ninety key Global Information Grid (GIG) defense and intelligence sites in the United States as well as in Europe and the Pacific). The Global Information Grid (GIG), initiated Each site has 10 gbs of useable dedicated in 1999, is designed to integrate all American bandwidth. Put another way, GIG-BE was defense information systems into a network- intended to remove bandwidth constraints centric operation that will provide process- from military users, limitations that have ing, storage, management, and transport of often proven lethal in the past. After initial information to support all Department of procurement purchases in 2003 and a six-site Defense (DoD), national security, and related pilot program conducted in 2004, GIG-BE intelligence community functions in condi- was fully implemented by 20 December 2005. tions of war, crisis, or peace. GIG capabilities Development of the GIG has led to DoD will be available from all operating locations defining nine core services to be provided: (fixed or mobile) and will interface with storage, messaging, enterprise service man- allied nations as well as non-GIG systems. agement, discovery, mediation (between and The system will cost at least $21 billion to among systems), information assurance, implement through 2010 and may take application hosting, user assistance, and col- another decade and more billions beyond laboration. Each of these is supported by a that to fully develop. community of engineers and architects from The GIG grew out of DoD’s search in the all the military services. Defining the infor- 1980s and 1990s for a truly integrated system mation assurance service, for example, the of communications that would provide National Security Agency noted on its Web information assurance, interoperability of site that “The essential element is that [infor- systems, and information sharing across all mation assurance] be an embedded feature, of its functions. It is much like the Internet designed into every system, holistically, in concept, but with less dependence on within the family of systems that comprise

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the GIG. This requires a shift from today’s Weiner, Tim. 2004. “Pentagon Envisioning a model consisting predominantly of link Costly Internet for War.” [Online article; encryption and boundary protection between retrieved March 2006.] http://www .nytimes.com/2004/11/13/technology/ multiple discrete networks, to an end-to-end, 13warnet.html?ex=1258088400&en=e05f6d9c seamlessly interconnected information envi- 70183448&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt. ronment using ‘Defense-in-Depth.’” Skeptics argue that past experience sug- gests the huge expenditures called for with Global Positioning System (GPS) such a wide-ranging system (especially one taking decades to innovate and implement) The Navigation Satellite Timing and Rang- may prove to develop disappointing or ing (NAVSTAR) global positioning system is short-lived results, especially as the pace of a U.S. Department of Defense system of technological change increases. And chang- twenty-four satellites that provide naviga- ing the culture of interservice rivalry to true tion information to both civilian and military joint interoperability is another requirement users around the world. It is one of the best if the GIG is to reach its full potential. current examples of a military development Christopher H. Sterling with immediate civilian applications and value. See also Communications Security (COMSEC); The GPS program was initiated in 1973 Defense Communications System (DCS); and the first satellites were launched in 1978. Defense Information Systems Agency The system’s initial operational capability (DISA); Defense Message System (DMS); was only reached on 8 December 1993 and Internet; Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); National Security Agency (NSA); Voice over full operational capability on 27 April 1995. Internet Protocol (VoIP) The satellites operate in circular orbits 11,000 miles high, circling the earth every twelve Sources hours. Six orbital planes, usually carrying Department of Defense. 2004. “Chapter 7.2: four satellites each, are equally spaced and Global Information Grid (GIG).” Defense inclined at 55 degrees with respect to the Acquisition Guidebook. [Online publication; equatorial plane. The configuration of the retrieved March 2006.] http://akss.dau .mil/dag/Guidebook/IG_c7.2.asp. satellites provides the user with anywhere Government Accountability Office. 2004. between five and eight satellites that are vis- Defense Acquisitions: The Global Information ible from any point on the earth. The satel- Grid and Challenges Facing Its Implementation. lites emit continuous signals on two different [Online publication; retrieved March 2006.] L-band frequencies (L1 is at 1575.42 MHz; L2 http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04858 .pdf. is at 1227.6 MHz). Miller, Alyson, et al. 2001. “Global Information GPS provides extremely accurate, three- Grid Architecture.” [Online article; retrieved dimensional position data (latitude, longi- March 2006.] http://www.mitre tude, and altitude), velocity, and accurate .org/news/the_edge/july_01/miller.html. time; passive all-weather operations; contin- National Security Agency Central Security uous real-time data; support to unlimited Service. “Global Information Grid.” [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] http:// users and areas; and a worldwide common www.nsa.gov/ia/industry/gig.cfm?MenuID grid. The information is available on two =10.3.2.2. levels. The Standard Positioning Service

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tion data accurate to at least 70 feet horizon- tally and 85 feet vertically with a 200 nanosecond Universal Coordinated Time accuracy. The GPS master control station at Schrie- ver Air Force Base in Colorado monitors and controls the system. In addition, five moni- tor stations and four ground control anten- nas are located around the world, which passively track the navigation signals from all the satellites. The data collected by the monitoring stations are analyzed at the mas- ter control station and used to update the satellites’ navigation messages. The ground antennas also receive telemetry data from the satellites and transmit commands to the various parts of the system. The designers of the NAVSTAR system originally intended to reduce the number of navigation systems being used by the Amer- ican military. Since its inception, the number of possible military and civilian uses of the technology have grown dramatically. For the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology uses military, receivers have been developed for multiple communication satellites to allow military ships, aircraft, land vehicles, and individual forces to determine more precisely their position—and use. The ability to precisely locate a weapons that of their enemies. Here a U.S. Air Force airman platform and a target has greatly increased uses a handheld GPS device to conduct a data collec- the accuracy of precision weapons. In addi- tion survey in Iraq in 2004. (Department of Defense) tion, the use of GPS receivers allows the user to know his or her own location more accu- rately than ever before despite weather con- (SPS) is a positioning and timing service ditions, terrain factors, and darkness. available to all GPS users (increasingly Tommy R. Young II including automobiles) worldwide on a con- See also Communication Satellites tinuous basis. SPS provides position accu- racy of 300 feet horizontally and more than Sources 450 feet vertically with a 340 nanosecond Dana, Peter H. 2000. “Global Positioning time accuracy. The Precise Positioning Ser- System Overview.” [Online article; vice (PPS) is an extremely accurate military retrieved June 2006.] http://www.colorado .edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f positioning, velocity, and timing service. PPS .html. is available on a continuous, worldwide Kaplan, Elliott D., ed. 1996. Understanding GPS: basis to those users authorized by the United Principles and Applications. Boston: Artech States. Military equipment provides posi- House.

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Parkinson, Bradford W., and James J. Spilker, mit over long distances. The transmitter was eds. 1996. Global Positioning System: Theory carried in a large semi-articulated vehicle. and Practice. Volumes I and II. Washington, The receiving vehicle had a similar shape DC: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. but contained a complex air-conditioned installation as it also formed the traffic office in which the majority of the crew worked. Golden Arrow Sections There appear to have been about twenty- five to thirty of these sections. Golden Arrow sections were self-contained As the Burma campaign developed, mobile high-speed Morse wireless units with mobile wireless stations were required to the British Royal Corps of Signals during move forward as army and corps headquar- World War II. Golden Arrow took its name ters advanced. The War Office arranged with from one of Britain’s elite express trains Cable and Wireless Ltd. to put into the field because the name evoked excellence and civilian detachments to assist in staffing speed. army equipment. They were known as Tel- The 4th Wireless Group, the parent unit com detachments and retained their interna- concerned, took the best of operators, wire- tional status as civilians. They operated less (OWL) and line (OKL) and operators directly with the Cable and Wireless main from the Royal Signals training centers at stations in Ceylon, from whence traffic was Catterick and Huddersfield, and converted transmitted back to London over the existing them into operators, wireless and keyboard network. (OWK), by teaching either the wireless or One example of Golden Arrow work per- the keyboard skills, as required. After oper- formed in northwest Europe was that done by ator training, the group formed mobile the 20 M wireless telegraph section. After Golden Arrow wireless sections. commencing operations in Normandy in The purpose of these units was to pass 1944, they were placed with the forward large amounts of traffic efficiently from any- facilities of Allied headquarters (SHAEF) and where in the world. The vehicle-mounted worked with Royal Air Force personnel who Golden Arrow section and its crew of were intercepting German Enigma transmis- twenty-three was completely self-contained, sions and enciphering them into British carrying its own collapsible mast gear, spare cipher. The section then sent the encrypted vacuum tubes, power supply, and adminis- signals to Bletchley Park, where they were trative stores. Most of the sections were sent sorted out and broken, and sent back for the to the headquarters of army formations intelligence staff at SHAEF. around the world and/or to such traditional Cliff Lord headquarters as Cairo and Delhi, with the Army Wireless Chain. They sometimes See also Bletchley Park; Enigma; High-Speed undertook press telegraphy, particularly in Morse; Morse Code; Telegraph; Ultra; United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; Vehicles the Far East. In northwest Europe, they were and Transport also employed to send intercepted enemy signals back to England. The Golden Arrow Source sections used shortwave band 8 transmit- Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal ters (with 3.5 kw output), which could trans- Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps

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(1920–2001) and Its Antecedents, 318–320. ley Park complex, intending it as emergency Solihull, UK: Helion. accommodation for MI6 and GC&CS per- sonnel in the event of the evacuation of Lon- don. GC&CS moved there in 1939. Government Code & Cipher During World War II the expanded School (GC&CS, 1919–1946) GC&CS headquarters at Bletchley Park included military, commercial, and diplo- Recognizing the growing importance of radio matic sections. A particular target of its code- communications during World War I, in 1919 breaking efforts was the German military’s British government officials created a new sig- ciphers produced by the extraordinarily nals intelligence agency. Known as the Gov- complex Enigma machine, adopted by the ernment Code & Cipher School (GC&CS), the German military in the 1920s. Improved ver- new unit was placed under the British Admi- sions of Enigma enormously complicated ralty. It began with a staff of twenty-five crypt- the task of deciphering German military traf- analysts and thirty support personnel. fic. Such encrypted traffic was provided to GC&CS’s principal functions were to study GC&CS cryptanalysts by the British army foreign powers’ methods of encoding radio radio monitoring station at Fort Bridgelands, traffic, with the aim of breaking foreign codes, near Chatham; by the Royal Navy’s monitor- and advising British government and mili- ing sites near Scarborough and Winchester; tary agencies on the security methods to be and by the Royal Air Force’s signals intercept employed in their own communications. station at Cheadle. In 1922 GC&CS was moved to the jurisdic- GC&CS’s mathematicians, engineers, lin- tion of the British Foreign Office, and the guists, and support staff eventually num- focus of its efforts shifted away from foreign bered more than 10,000. Isolated at Bletchley military and toward diplomatic radio traffic. Park, they penetrated enemy diplomatic and Nonetheless, dedicated sections within military codes and developed the first elec- GC&CS were created from each branch of tronic digital computer. Much (but not all) the British armed forces. As European and Enigma traffic was eventually deciphered, Asian powers drifted toward war in the late and before D-Day, 6 June 1944, decrypted 1930s, GC&CS work turned to deciphering German military communications were being the military codes of its potential enemies, employed in Allied military planning. particularly Germany. The GC&CS staff CG&CS personnel paid less attention to pre- working in London increased to about 150 serving the security of Britain’s own commu- employees. nications. British naval codes were regularly In 1938 a new property at Bletchley Park compromised by German code breakers in (about 50 miles northwest of London) was the early years of the war, allowing German purchased by Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, a U-boats to inflict devastating losses on Allied former director of Naval Intelligence for the shipping in the North Atlantic. Royal Navy and, at this time, head of the After the war the Bletchley Park complex British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also was disassembled. GC&CS was relocated to known as MI6. SIS had assumed administra- Eastcote, near London, in 1946, with a tive authority over GC&CS, and Sinclair smaller staff of 7,000 employees. The name ordered major improvements to the Bletch- of the organization was changed to Gov -

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ernment Communications Headquarters, of frequent enemy activity. The towers could and in 1952 its headquarters was moved to use any of six different kinds of signaling Cheltenham. techniques and predetermined codes (using Laura M. Calkins lights, flag patterns, gunshots), depending on time of day and local conditions. By the See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), messages could Breaking; Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; be sent up to 700 miles within one day and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982); Turing, Alan night. Mathison (1912–1954); Ultra; Welchman, Beacon fires or torches required a substan- Gordon (1906–1985); World War II; tial supply of fuel for fires maintained in or Y Service near such towers to allow rapid access (some have been recently discovered, carefully cov- Sources ered with mud to preserve them from Alvarez, David, ed. 1999. Allied and Axis Signals weather). Once used, the fuel supply was Intelligence in World War II. London: Frank Cass. immediately replenished by local garrison Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. 1993. troops. Hot coals were kept available as oth- Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. erwise development of flames for signals or Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. torches would be too time-consuming in Macksey, Kenneth. 2003. The Searchers: Radio times of need. Signal derricks (an early form Intercept in Two World Wars. London: Cassell. of semaphore) could raise baskets covered in Smith, Michael. 2004. Station X: The Codebreakers different colors of cloth or silk. They could of Bletchley Park. Rev. ed. London: Pan also carry baskets of fire or smoke. Flags of Books. different colors could also be used. Drums were often used in wet weather when fires could not be started or in foggy conditions Great Wall of China that limited visibility. Different numbers of beats indicated different signals, such as the The 1,500-mile-long Great Wall of China level of enemy activity, size of an attacking (actually many different walls built over force, or progress of a siege. more than a thousand years) included sig- The Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE) added naling features from its inception. As early as the use of signal artillery. Different numbers 400 BCE, beacon fires and drums were used of cannon fire could be used to indicate the for both warning and general communica- size of an enemy force. Fire signals made tion along the wall. Flag signals were added use of color by addition of such fuels as sul- later. As early as 200 BCE fairly complex phur or saltpeter. Modes of signaling varied codes were developed for the use of flags by geographic district, and signals could and drum signaling. often be sent both ways along the wall. By the time of the Han dynasty (200 If one tower failed to relay a signal, a run- BCE–220 CE), segments of the wall included ner would be sent to find out why. Couriers more signaling towers than had earlier por- carrying messages in writing were a backup tions. They were built within easy visual mode to the other methods. Signal tower sight of one another—often much less than a personnel were required to maintain daily mile apart, depending on terrain, or in areas records of signals sent and received and

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were extensively trained and tested on signal news of Athens’ victory in the battle of methods and codes. They also had general Marathon (490 BCE), as he ran 26 miles and observation and patrol duties to supplement then collapsed. His run is the origin of mod- signaling activity. Punishment for incorrect ern marathon races. or false signals or other transgressions could The modern Hellenic Army Signal Corps be severe—including imprisonment or even traces its origin to the Army Organization death. Plan of 1885, which provided for the estab- Beacon towers along the wall often served lishment of one telegraph company within as postal centers. Couriers on foot or horse- the engineer corps. The company was acti- back were used for short-distance signaling. vated in 1887 and participated a decade later Very important messages were marked with in the war with Turkey. In 1904, two more a feather and had to be carried day and telegraph companies were formed. Each was night—the record distance achieved was 250 organic to three newly established engineer- miles in a day. The hundreds of signal tow- ing battalions. In 1912 the three telegraph ers remaining in varied states of preservation companies were re-formed into two inde- along the Great Wall attest to their impor- pendent telegraph companies and one wire- tance in China’s long history. less company. They all saw service in the Christopher H. Sterling Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. See also Ancient Signals; Artillery/Gunfire; During World War I (1914–1918), a tele- China, People’s Republic of; Code, graph regiment (a depot and training center) Codebook; Couriers; Fire/Flame/Torch; was established in 1917. It provided all the Flags; Horses and Mules; Lights and communication detachments and support to Beacons; Music Signals; Postal Services; the Hellenic Army during the war, the sub- Smoke sequent campaign in southern Russia in Sources 1919, and the war in Asia Minor in Dalin, Cheng. 1984. “The Wall’s Unique 1920–1922. By the late 1930s, the Hellenic Communications System.” In The Great Wall Army organization provided for one engi- of China, 198–209. Hong Kong: South China neer battalion per division. However, only Morning Post. one company of these battalions was an Lovell, Julia. 2006. The Great Wall: China Against engineer company, the other two being a the World, 1000 BC–AD 2000. New York: Grove Press. telephone company and a wireless company, Waldron, Arthur. 1990. The Great Wall of China which also included optical signaling equip- from History to Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge ment. Each army corps was supported by University Press. two similar communications companies. The number of wireless sets in a division wireless company was limited to five or six, and these Greece were assigned to the divisional headquar- ters, the infantry regiments, and the artillery As with Italy or Egypt in the Mediterranean regiments. Most of the Greek signals equip- area, Greek military communications date ment was of German manufacture. back to classical history, at least to the time of It was with that organization and equip- Alexander the Great. Perhaps the most ment that the Hellenic Army communicated famous military courier, Philipides brought during the Italian and later German inva-

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sions of 1940–1941. Following the occupation Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on of Greece by the Germans in 1941, the 27 March 1844, Greely began his military remains of the Hellenic Army escaped to the career during the American Civil War Middle East, where a small force was orga- (1861–1865) as a private in the Massachu- nized in the form of a typical British army setts volunteer infantry. Wounded three organization, using British equipment. In times, including a bullet to the face, he wore November 1942, a Greek brigade partici- a splendid beard the rest of his life, presum- pated in the landmark British El Alamein ably to hide his scars. Detailed to the Signal (Egypt) offensive. During that period, the Corps in 1867, he served as a signal officer in first semi-official separation of signals from the field before being assigned to the Signal the engineers occurred. Office in Washington DC. An independent signal corps was estab- When the Signal Corps became responsi- lished only after the liberation of Greece in ble for the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1870, 1944. It was as a result of the reorganization Greely became an avid student of meteorol- of the Hellenic Army with the assistance and ogy. He made a name for himself by building advice of a British military mission. A royal more than 2,000 miles of telegraph lines in decree issued on 31 May 1946 established the Southwest and the Northwest over the Signal Corps as the fifth combat arm of which observers transmitted weather re - the army. A signal training center/school ports. In 1881 Greely volunteered to lead an was established at Haidari, on the west side expedition to Lady Franklin Bay in northern of Athens, in 1946. The buildings had been Canada to study Arctic weather and climate constructed during the 1938–1940 period, as part of the first International Polar Year. and the Germans had used the area as a con- Stranded in the far north when relief vessels centration camp during the 1941–1944 occu- could not reach them as scheduled, Greely pation. The Signal Training Center was and his men suffered terribly until finally opened in 1963, the motto of which is, “He rescued in June 1884. Only six of the original sent forth a dove,” from Genesis 8:8. twenty-five members returned home alive. Cliff Lord Greely became an internationally known fig- See also Ancient Signals; Couriers ure, and in 1887 President Grover Cleveland appointed him chief signal officer. Source As chief, Greely supervised a rapidly Greek Military Gateway. “Greek Military expanding communications network at home Photos.” [Online information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www.greekmilitary and around the world. During the Spanish- .net/GreekDefenceIndustry.html. American War (1898), the corps laid cable and wire lines in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. With an eye to the future, Greely, Adolphus W. (1844–1935) Greely championed the introduction of new technology to the corps’ operations, in par- A man of many accomplishments, Adolphus ticular, aeronautics and radio. In 1892 he Greely served the longest tenure of any U.S. authorized the purchase of a captive balloon Army chief signal officer—from 1887 to for reconnaissance, the beginnings of the 1906—a period of significant development in corps’ involvement with aviation. In 1898 military communications. Greely urged the Army to support Samuel P. Langley’s aerodrome experiments. He

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later called his work with Langley the most Greely, Adolphus W. 1927. Reminiscences of important peace duty he ever performed. Adventure and Service: A Record of Sixty-five Greely also oversaw the establishment of an Years. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Mitchell, William. 1936. General Greely: The Story experimental laboratory where new signal of a Great American. New York: G. P. Putnam’s equipment was constructed and tested. Sons. Under his leadership, the Signal Corps built Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Message Through: A Branch History of the US Telegraph System in 1900–1903, and the next Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Govern- ment Printing Office. year added a wireless portion spanning the Shrader, Charles R. 1984. “Greely, Adolphus 107 miles over Norton Sound. Washington.” In Dictionary of American Greely played an active role in establishing Military Biography, edited by Roger J. both national and international communica- Spiller, 403–409. Westport, CT: Greenwood tions policy. In 1903 he attended both the Press. first international conference on wireless Todd, Alden L. 1961. Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881–1884. New telegraphy in Berlin and the International York: McGraw-Hill. Telegraph Congress in London. The next year, he was a member of an inter- departmental board, the Wireless Telegraph Ground Radio Board, set up by President Theodore Roo- sevelt to determine the best means of admin- Widely used during World War I, when con- istration and regulation of wireless stant artillery shelling during trench war- telegraphy in the United States. Promoted to fare made it hard to maintain wired links, major general in 1906, Greely retired two ground radio (also called earth telegraphy) years later at the mandatory age of sixty- made use of the earth’s ability to conduct an four, but remained active throughout the electrical signal for up to several hundred remainder of his long life. yards. Greely was a founder of the National Geo- Hoping to save the cost of stringing graphic Society and the Explorer’s Club of expensive wire line, several early telegraph New York. He also participated in many systems took advantage of the ability to send social and civic organizations. A prolific an electrical signal through water and later writer, he published several books and earth. Experimenters used widely separated numerous articles. Shortly before his death, he ground plates, which proved successful. received a special Congressional Medal of Indeed, experiments with ground conduc- Honor for his lifetime of public service. He tion established telegraphic contact through died on 20 October 1935 at age ninety-one an isthmus of land (by Samuel Morse in and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. 1842), across streams (by Alfred Vail in 1843), Fort Greely, Alaska, is named in his honor. across wider rivers (by Lindsay in 1843), Rebecca Robbins Raines across a bay (by Antonio Meucci in 1846), See also Airplanes; Alaska Communications and through the earth (by Nathan Stubble- System (ACS); Army Signal Corps; Spanish- field from the 1890s on). An accidental dis- American War (1898); Wireless Telegraph covery proved that one long line system Board continued operating with great strength of signal, despite the fact that the line had been Sources

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broken in several places. The realization that Both sides in World War I made use of signals could actually traverse earth for up to ground radio systems once the Western several hundred yards and then reenter a Front stabilized into trench warfare. By 1916 grounded line marked the beginning of con- the British Fullerphone, which utilized the duction systems that relied on ground con- earth to complete its telegraph communica- duction and energy for their successful tion circuits, was in service. French army operation. units also used conduction telegraphy What may have been the first voice devices that used earth circuits. But short- “broadcast” was conducted by Nathan Stub- ages of this and related equipment well into blefield at various late nineteenth-century 1918 (due in part to divided efforts looking dates (source records differ). He employed into too many different options for trench what he called “earth cells” and long iron warfare communication) limited the value rods to transmit strong voice signals “with of earth conduction telegraphy systems. great clarity.” These traversed a mile or more The U.S. Army Signal Corps had developed of ground, a coordinated conduction wire- and began production of four types of less system providing telephone service for “earth telegraphy” sets by 1918. All of his Kentucky farm community. His experi- these ground telegraphy systems, however, ments offered a technological mystery, for were really a stopgap until more viable his earth cells never wore out, never pro- wireless equipment could be developed and duced heat in their telephonic components, distributed. and provided power at any time. Being nei- Christopher H. Sterling ther activated nor assisted by additional bat- See also Ferrié, Gustave-Auguste (1868–1932); tery power, the system was fully operational Fullerphone; Radio; Rogers, James Harris around the clock. Unable to obtain financial (1850–1929); World War I backing, however, Stubblefield’s system was never pursued and he died of starvation in Sources 1928. Gernsback, Hugo. 1919. “Ground Telegraphy in War.” Electrical Experimenter. Though many others worked on related Lochte, Bob. 2001. Kentucky Farmer Invents principles, none were as successful as James Wireless Telephone! But Was It Radio? Facts and Harris Rogers (1850–1929) in the years lead- Folklore About Nathan Stubblefield. Murray, ing up to World War I. Rogers’s wireless KY: All About Wireless. telegraphy antennas rested on the ground’s “Underground Wireless” (Editorial). 1919. Electrical Experimenter VI (11): 833–834. subsurface and were relatively easy to con- Vassilatos, Gerry. “An Introduction to the struct. Placed into long plowed furrows, the Mysteries of Ground Radio.” [Online various Rogers antennas performed in a article; retrieved November 2004.] http:// dependable manner, producing strong sig- www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/ nals with little static or distortion. His ground-myst.htm. designs attracted the attention of military engineers in their efforts to establish failsafe communications between command centers Gulf War (1990–1991) and distant fleet, ground surface, or sub- merged forces. The architect of the air power campaign against Iraq in 1990–1991, John Warden III,

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once described that conflict as the first while the Air Force Satellite Communica- “hyperwar” because it was based on innov- tions System used three satellites securing ative technology, unprecedented precision, communication of command over strategic operational and strategic surprise, and the forces. The Defense Support Program early use of advanced modes of military commu- warning satellites, in service since 1970, were nication. The use of new weapons, including used to trace Iraqi Scud missile launchers precision laser-guided bombs, unmanned and launching pads. A crucial function was air vehicles (like Predator), the F-117 (invis- played by the Joint Surveillance and Target ible to most radar), and the artillery systems Attack Radar System (JSTARS)—the ad- of detecting and destroying targets (TAC- vanced air radar surveillance system, which FIRE), was made possible by widespread at that time was still in its developmental application of command, control, communi- phase. By scanning the earth’s surface, it cation, computers, intelligence, surveillance, provided information on enemy land forces and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities. and detailed images of the terrain. Radar Access to information became a primary images taken by JSTARS planes were also condition of military success while space, used to track mobile Iraqi Scud missile where a lot of crucial military information launchers. JSTARS provided the allied coali- traveled, gave the war a new dimension. tion with the command capability to locate General Merill McPeak, then U.S. Air Force and track moving ground enemy targets. chief of staff, called the conflict the first war Through extensive communication channels of the space age. In the Gulf War, space com- this information was quickly transmitted to munications systems played a central role in air and ground theater commanders. the effective use of high-tech weaponry. During the 1980s, the United States orbited Because (for the first time in military his- a NAVSTAR collection of satellites. By the tory) precision-guided munitions were used Gulf War, sixteen of them were providing nav- extensively (almost 9 percent of all explo- igation and positioning data, emitting a steady sives), the effectiveness of strikes against signal that allowed anyone with a receiver to Iraqi targets depended on the quality and locate himself or herself in three dimensions. accuracy of information. Precision weapons The global positioning system (GPS), which hinge on precise information—its gathering, developed from this system, enabled Army processing, interpreting, and transmitting. elements to determine their position in the Thus information and communication vast Iraqi desert. A GPS shortcoming, how- became crucial for military victory. ever, was that it did not work for two hours in Satellite communication for military pur- the morning and two hours in the evening poses was used extensively for the first time when the satellites did not cover the Persian during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. It Gulf region. Several other systems contributed was continuously developed since then, and to the coalition military effort: Defense Mete- the Gulf War saw its widespread applica- orological Satellite Program (DMSP) weather tion. The allied coalition used about sixty satellites, the U.S. LandSAT multispectral satellites, which fell into two basic systems. imagery satellites, and the Tactical Information The Defense Satellite Communication Sys- Broadcast Service. tem consisted of four satellites providing The Gulf War developed in two phases: telephone and telegraphic communication, the initial strategic air campaign and subse-

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quent ground warfare backed up with air agement. There were 115 super high fre- and naval forces. The war was fought quency tactical satellite ground terminal according to the air-land battle doctrine relocations during the ground campaign. By because air (including space) and ground the end of the operation, thirty-three multi- elements were equally important. One of the channel satellite terminals were in Iraq and greatest challenges was to maintain uninter- Kuwait. Due to the distances between units, rupted communication that would allow deploying units also used ultra-high fre- successful conduct of joint air, naval, and quency ground terminals. army operations. Air space over the Persian At the end of the war, the coalition Gulf was monitored by Airborne Warning communication system was impressive, con- and Control System (AWACS) Boeing 707s sisting of 2,300 personnel, 7,000 radio fre- filled with computers that by tracking allied quencies, and fifty-nine communication and enemy aircraft gave early warning of centers. During the war 29 million phone Iraqi air force movements while supporting calls were made. Command was heavily coalition strikes. By sending data to ground dependent on civilian communication satel- communication centers, which in turn trans- lite networks even for transmitting encoded ferred the information to Air Force planes, messages. Much communication traveled AWACS helped direct the air battle. The sky over landlines to a commercial satellite ter- was also scanned by the air defense cruiser minal in Kuwait City from which it was USS Bunker Hill. The Navy largely relied on linked to the United States. After the war E-2C Hawkeye radar surveillance aircraft. this bottleneck appeared to be a potential Secure communication channels between Air Achilles heel, for if the Iraqis had realized Force AWACS and Navy E-2C aircraft com- this heavy dependence on civilian infrastruc- puters was provided by Link 11. It did not, ture, they could have stopped U.S. forces by however, work perfectly, experiencing occa- disrupting their communication with jam- sional breakdowns resulting in miscues ming or sabotage. among aircraft and between aircraft and the Military communication (and the war in Bunker Hill. Many problems were also expe- general) was computer based to such an rienced with interservice communication. unprecedented degree that General Norman AWACS could communicate information to Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Air Force F-15s using secure voice but could Desert Storm, admitted that he had prob- not communicate with Navy F-14s. Addi- lems changing his battle plan because it was tional surveillance and information systems, so computerized. Among several meta - such as the Aegis radar system, were located systems that linked computers of C4ISR on Navy ships. systems, only one was specially created: To support Operation Desert Storm, U.S. Opera tion Desert Storm Network (ODS Central Command (CENTCOM) established NET). Its management center was located at the largest theater communication system in Fort Huachuca in Arizona and linked thou- military history. It connected American sus- sands of computers through satellites and taining bases, CENTCOM headquarters, lines. Although ODS NET carried unclassi- coalition forces, and support elements by fied information, it was essential for provid- expanding rapidly. Multichannel satellite ing communication among all the services at systems required detailed frequency man- bases around the world. Yet the Gulf War

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demonstrated limitations in military com- through the same telecommunication tech- munication due to poor interservice com- nologies that guided smart bombs and patibility. For example, while the Army Patriot missiles to their targets. Much corps’ tactical operation centers used e-mail media information was carried on the same communication to send messages that were satellite systems as was military informa- received on cellular phones hooked into a tion. Therefore, the Gulf War was a “double computer, there was no means of confirming hyperwar,” for both the military operations that the message had been received. and media coverage of them was possible For allied air operations, Iraqi command, only because of the integrated use of control, and communication sites were a satellites, computers, cellular telephones, high-priority target. The Iraqi high com- microwave relay stations, and related tech- mand’s ability to communicate with its forces nologies. The increased speed of news trans- and control them was destroyed early during mission resulted in real-time broadcasting, the war, giving the allies tactical superiority. which gave rise to the “CNN effect.” This This was achieved largely by air power and phenomenon created a new dimension of precision-guided weapons. Targets included military communication. The reciprocal rela- microwave relay towers, telephone ex- tionship can be summed up in a series of changes, fiber optic nodes, switching rooms, cycles: war leads to media coverage, which and bridges carrying coaxial communication creates public opinion, which places politi- cables. Because civilian TV and radio facilities cians under pressure, who then pressure mil- could be used for military purposes, they itary commanders, who initiate changes in also became crucial targets, as did civilian the conduct of war and/or military censor- telecommunication systems. Had the Iraqi ship. The Gulf War set a new standard for command been able to communicate with both military communication and media war its forces, its ability to wage war in Kuwait coverage. and Iraq would have been far greater. ?ukasz Kamie?ski It was ironic that Iraq’s communication See also Airborne Warning and Control System infrastructure was being destroyed by (AWACS); Communication Satellites; sophisticated weapons systems that were Computer; Global Positioning System (GPS); completely dependent on communication Information Revolution in Military Affairs systems. American information and com- (IRMA); Iraq War (2003–Present); Micro - munication superiority was paralleled by wave; Mobile Communications; Radio; Spectrum Frequencies techniques of disinformation against the Iraqi army. For example, the EF-111 Raven Sources aircraft was designed to jam Iraqi radars and Blackwell, James. 1991. Thunder in the Desert. thus protect allied aircraft from being The Strategy and Tactics of the Persian Gulf War. detected. The Iraqis failed to create early New York: Bantam Books. warning capability when their French-made Department of Defense. 1992. Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress. Tiger radars installed on Soviet-supplied IL- Washington, DC: Department of Defense. 76 transport aircraft did not succeed. Fialka, John. 1992. Hotel Warriors: Covering the Current information on the war was trans- Gulf War. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson mitted to news agencies around the world Center Press.

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Freedman, Lawrence, and Efraim Karsh. 1993. Gordon, Michael R., and Bernard E. Trainor. The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy and 1995. The Generals’ War. The Inside Story War in the New World. Princeton, NJ: Prince- of the Conflict in the Gulf. Boston: Little, ton University Press. Brown.

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Hadrian’s Wall towers that could relay a signal, to summon soldiers in case of trouble. Hadrian’s Wall was built in the 120s CE to While more complex messages were usu- provide a defensible border at the northern ally sent by traditional courier, the signal end of Roman-occupied Britain, essentially system allowed for more rapid simple emer- today’s England. It stretched from Wallsend gency communications. The latter made use (near Newcastle) on the Tyne River west to of a number of visual modes of getting atten- Bowness on the Solway River, making good tion and transmitting information—typically use of terrain to strengthen the barrier. As fire or prepared beacons of flame. In addition with other Roman fortifications, the 76-mile- to fire beacons, the Romans operating on long wall built of stone, wood, and turf (some- Hadrian’s Wall may also have used pigeons times built to a height of 20 or more feet), was as well as mirrors or crude heliographs for well equipped for military signaling. carrying messages. Using any of these meth- The communications system included ods, the legions stationed at the larger forts both the military road that ran along and were already alerted and preparing by the behind the line of defense and a series of time a courier with more complete informa- observation and signal towers built directly tion arrived on foot or horseback along the on the wall, each visible to one of the dozen military roadways. The obvious nature of or so larger residential forts built on or just using fire for signaling had the additional south of the line. Hadrian’s Wall featured deterring benefit of letting enemy attackers dozens of “milecastles,” so named because know they had been sighted and that rein- they stood roughly a Roman mile apart from forcing help for the defenders was likely on one another. These smaller “fortlets” were the way. Presuming sufficient manpower carefully sited to remain in signal range (a and a careful observation routine, the signal- few hundred yards to a few miles) of the ing system made the stone defenses immea- larger forts, or in some cases to intervening surably stronger.

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Roman legions built (in the second century CE), maintained, and manned Hadrian’s Wall across the north of England to protect against tribal raids. Signal fires, smoke signals, and couriers were the primary means of communication along the stone and earthen wall. (Corel)

Hadrian’s Wall remained active, prevent- Sources ing invasion by the barbarian tribes in the Johnson, Anne. 1983. Roman Forts. London: north (present-day Scotland), and was con- Adam & Charles Black. Johnson, Stephen. 1989. Hadrian’s Wall. London: stantly repaired and upgraded, until about Batsford/English Heritage. 400 CE—in other words, for nearly three Woolliscroft, D. I. 2001. Roman Military centuries. (For a brief period, 143 to about Signalling. Stroud, UK: Tempus. 200 CE, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned for the shorter Antonine Wall, which lay farther north but could not be sustained. That Heliograph and Mirrors shorter, turf-built wall used similar modes of signaling.) Through those three centuries, The late nineteenth-century heliograph signaling methods varied only marginally. became a sophisticated signaling system Christopher H. Sterling combining light and mirrors for tactical com- munication in the field. It generally used the See also Ancient Signals; Couriers; Fire/Flame/Torch; Great Wall of China; sun, and occasionally moonlight. Heliograph and Mirrors; Lights and Beacons; Two sources of light are available for opti- Military Roads; Pigeons cal signaling: the reflected sun during day-

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light, and some other form of bright light (a Phillip Colomb devised the idea of sending flame or an artificial light source) for use Morse code by signal lamp flashes. Develop- during day or night. Using sun flashes on ment was pursued with both land and ship- mirrors, for example, is a very old technique. to-ship communication. Colomb lectured on Many ancient civilizations in Asia and the this scheme the next year and later perfected Middle East as well as Native Americans the system. He used burning lime plus a (notably the Dakota tribes) used small pieces shutter to create signals. Dubbed a “Colomb of silica or mica to flash sun signals of recog- light,” his system used limelight, as had been nition and simple messages. used in theaters for years, though without The first technological breakthrough any shutter. toward a technical system of optical military While stationed in India in 1869, Henry C. signaling came in 1821 when German scien- Mance developed the first heliograph by tist Karl Gauss devised a means to direct a adding a movable mirror. Just a year later, a controlled beam of sunlight by mirror to a group of French officers used this system to distant station for use in geodetic surveys in send flashing signals by day and (with the Hanover region. But Gauss was inter- kerosene) by night. The process was used ested only in surveying, and several decades during the Siege of Paris in 1870. Three years would pass before the Morse code became later, Captain E. E. Begbie devised an im - the key to communication by heliograph. proved mirror signal device using a movable In 1822 the British Royal Engineers used a screen that alternately revealed and closed flashing instrument with multiple pieces of the mirror. The Indian colonial government polished tin in their trigonometric survey of adopted Begbie’s device two years later, and the British Isles. Soon after, the same service this heliograph subsequently saw consider- devised use of a mirror with a group of tele- able use in British colonial wars in scopes to send flashes directly, calling it a Afghanistan, with the Duffla and Jowarki “heliostat.” In 1833 in India, Sir George expeditions in India, and during the Zulu Everest (for whom the mountain is named), War in South Africa. devised a “heliotrope,” also for use in By this time, two distinct devices had trigonometrical surveys. A Royal Navy cap- developed. The older heliostat used a fixed tain at Gibraltar used a mirror from a mirror to reflect a steady beam of light to a common looking glass to converse with receiving point, and was primarily used in friends across the strait to Tangier (Morocco) surveying. For signaling, that constant beam about 1835. And in 1851, Charles Babbage was interrupted by a Colomb shutter, gener- invented a sun-flashing machine he called ally transmitting the Morse alphabet—with an “occulting telegraph,” which he offered a similar result to the Royal Navy’s night to the Duke of Wellington. By 1860, Mon- Colomb flashing light system. The more sieur Leseuere, an inspector of French tele- advanced heliograph used Mance’s oscillat- graph lines, devised an optical telegraph for ing mirror, which, along with a Begbie mov- use by the French army based on Professor able screen, could alternately transmit or Gauss’s earlier device, though his code is stop transmission of a reflected dot or dash unknown. to one distant station. Use of a telegraph key About 1862, British army Major Francis to control the Begbie screen permitted short John Bolton and Royal Navy Lieutenant or longer reflection, much as a similar key

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The mirror-based heliograph signaling device, shown here with four rather formally-dressed soldiers around 1880, was widely used in the late nineteenth century by both British forces during colonial wars in Africa and Asia, and by the American Army during the Indian wars. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) enabled a short dot or longer dash noise for Geronimo and other Native American chiefs the electric telegraph. Both heliostat and heli- were puzzled by the heliograph, and ograph had to be set up and calibrated with stunned by its speed. While heliograph sta- care, and required a good telescope to read tions had to be aligned with care and the flashed signals. required the use of telescopes to read distant While heliograph development took place stations, they did not need a wire and were at Fort Whipple, Virginia, in the later 1870s, readily portable. The electric telegraph was little actual field use by the United States then rarely used by the Army because of the came until American forces learned of British danger of wire sabotage. Naturally, clear success in India. Army use of the heliograph conditions (usually present in the South- to keep separate forces in constant touch west) were required. Ranges extended from finally turned the tide of the campaign in the nine to fifty miles, with the Arizona–New Southwest against the tenacious Apaches. Mexico heliograph network covering more

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than 500 miles. Some 6,000 messages were Goode, Samuel. 1875. “Mance’s Heliograph, or sent during the extended campaign. The pri- Sun-Telegraph.” The Journal of the Royal mary challenge with heliograph use was in United Service Institution 19: 533–548. Harfield, Alan. 1986. The Heliograph: A Short discerning the difference between the Morse History. 2nd ed. Blandford Camp, UK: Royal dot and dash. The eventual solution was to Signals Museum. make the dash at least three times longer Woods, David L. 1965. “Optical Telegraphy.” than the dot. Heliographs were adopted by In A History of Tactical Communication the armies of most developed nations; they Techniques, 149–166. Orlando, FL: Martin- Marietta. were used by both sides during the Spanish- Wynne, A. S. 1880. “Heliography and Army American War (1898) and by the British dur- Signalling Generally.” The Journal of the Royal ing the Boer War. United Service Institution 24: 235–258. After 1915, the heliograph began to fade into obscurity. Operators were still trained, and systems procured, but trench warfare Hello Girls and poor weather made the systems difficult to use. Improvements in other signal sys- During World War I, the American Expedi- tems (chiefly telegraphy and telephony) tionary Force (AEF) in France implemented pushed the heliograph from its three decades a program of using technically trained, bilin- of dominating tactical communication in hot gual female telephone operators, known as and dry climates. Mesopotamia was the pri- “Hello Girls,” to help improve American mary theater for heliograph usage during communications as part of the Allied war World War I, and the devices were also used effort. In October 1917, AEF Commander in on occasion (as weather permitted) on the Chief General John Pershing asked the War Western Front. Department for special units of skilled Heliographs remained part of the signal- women because he believed they had supe- ing equipment of the Australian, British, and rior ability as telephone switchboard opera- Canadian forces well into the twentieth cen- tors and it would allow male operators to tury. Australian forces used the heliograph in serve in the more dangerous telephone sta- Egypt and Libya against Erwin Rommel’s tions at the front. Because the AEF had to Afrika Corps in 1941–1942, and a version communicate with the French armies on its was used by Afghan insurgents against the right and left, with French corps in the AEF Soviets in the 1980s. An emergency signaling and the Allied General Headquarters it was mirror remains a part of survival kits on land vitally important that telephone operators and at sea to this day. spoke French as well as they spoke English. David L. Woods In November 1917, the War Department approved Pershing’s request and called See also Fire/Flame/Torch; Fort Huachuca, upon the commercial telephone companies Arizona; Lights and Beacons; Spanish- to help identify, recruit, and train physically American War (1898) fit French-speaking American women who would serve in a quasi-military status as uni- Sources Colomb, Philip. 1863, “Naval and Military formed civilian contract employees subject Signals.” The Journal of the Royal United to military discipline. Out of 7,000 appli- Service Institution 7: 349–393. cants, more than 450 women completed

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U.S. Army female telephone operators, known as “Hello Girls,” operate a switchboard in France during World War I. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) training in signal duties, and 223 were sent regimen prompted Colonel Parker Hitt, chief overseas in what were officially known as signal officer of the First Army, to employ the Telephone Operating Units, Signal Corps. women at advanced command posts as close The first unit of thirty-three women to the front as possible. departed New York in March 1918 under Shortly after their arrival at Hitt’s head- the supervision of Chief Operator Grace quarters, the St. Mihiel offensive began and Banker. During American participation in the Hello Girls received their baptism by World War I (1917–1918) six operating units fire. They often had to work 48-hour shifts, were formed and sent to France, where they enduring shell fire, hunger, and fatigue dur- were assigned to the large headquarters ing the later battle for the Meuse-Argonne. offices such as Paris, Chaumont, and Tours, They were praised for their skill, particu- locations where telephone traffic was espe- larly Grace Banker, who was awarded the cially heavy. In addition, some smaller units Distinguished Service Medal for her leader- of women served at the three Army head- ship and determination during the Army’s quarters. Though technically civilian non- offensives. Although the women with First combatants, their military uniforms and Army were the only ones to experience com-

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bat operations, other detachments of Hello were developed, as were, in some cases, coats Girls worked with the Second Army at Toul of arms. These aided with unit identification. and Third Army at Coblenz when it became Heraldry is the study and description of the army of occupation. coats of arms, and of the rights of individu- The Hello Girls ensured that efficient com- als and families to bear those arms. The ori- mand and control were maintained during gins lie in the twelfth century, when knights the most important phase of American oper- in Europe decorated their shields to identify ations in France. AEF Chief Signal Officer themselves in battle. Eventually the emblems Brigadier General Edgar Russel proclaimed were reduced in size and became headdress that the Hello Girls set a standard of excel- badges and collar badges depicting either lence responsible for the success of American country or regiment. local and long-distance telephone communi- Shakespeare offers a good stage scene cation. However, their military status was built around heraldry, from King Henry V, challenged for more than sixty years until Part 2 (Act 5, Scene 1). Warwick, facing bat- 1977 when the Army granted honorable tle, places his crest atop his helmet (Shake- discharges to the few surviving Hello Girls speare errs on the origin of the crest: the and recognized them as veterans of World Kingmaker inherited it from Sir Richard War I. Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, his father- Steven J. Rauch in-law). And as he is about to ride toward his enemy, he says, “Now, by my father’s badge, See also Banker, Grace (1892–1960); Telephone; World War I old Nevil’s crest / The rampant bear chain’d to the ragged staff / This day I’ll wear aloft Sources my burgonet / As on a mountain top the Gavin, Letty. 1997. American Women in cedar shows / That keeps his leaves in spite World War 1. Niwot: University Press of any storm / Even to affright thee with of Colorado. the view thereof.” Schneider, Dorothy, and Carl J. Schneider. 2000. Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in With the advent of signal corps in various World War I. Lincoln, NE: toExcel Press, countries, they too followed suit and intro- iUniverse.com, Inc. duced their own badges reflecting the nature Wyman, Thomas Sage. 1998. “A Telephone of their work. These generally fall into four Switchboard Operator with the A.E.F. in categories: (1) the image of Mercury, the France.” Army History Fall/Winter: 1–9. Roman messenger of the gods, worn by British Commonwealth nations; (2) crossed flags, worn by the U.S. Army Signal Corps Heraldry/Insignia (see below) and many South American sig- nal units as well as some other nations; (3) As one means of building and maintaining lightning flashes, in various forms, worn by morale and esprit de corps, signaling units many of the world’s signal corps; and (4) from many countries, especially those of the designs specific to a nation, for example, the British Commonwealth, made use of various heraldic letter T for the French signals (or symbols to promote how good they were, or transmissions). intended to be. Expressed in Latin or in the Many modern signal badges, flags, and local language, mottos often appeared on unit coats of arms depict Mercury, who was badges or uniforms. Special flags and colors the Roman god of messengers (as well as

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commerce, games and exercise, story- these are two of the several designs used by telling—and even thievery). He is nearly Brigadier General Albert Myer, founder of always depicted wearing a winged hat and the U.S. Army Signal Corps and inventor of shoes. Mercury, in turn, was based on the the large, one-flag wig-wag signal flag sys- earlier Greek god Hermes, who was tem widely used in both the Union and Con- depicted in similar fashion. In ancient times, federate armies during the American Civil messages from one ruler to another or War. They continued in use into the twenti- between armies were often carried by special eth century and were frequently the only couriers considered “heralds,” who were to signal system that could be used for trans- be treated with respect and not harmed. missions between the Army and Navy. They carried a special staff as the sign of Many signals authorities continue to con- their role (this was called a “caduceus,” fuse the two flag designs and systems. The and both Mercury and Hermes were two-hand semaphore flag signal system uses depicted carrying such a staff, which also two flags that are marked identically—often had wings). The table below provides a brief divided diagonally red and white. This sim- guide to the variety of some signaling service ple, portable system used two flags about 12 mottoes. to 14 inches square. In reality, the one-flag The Signal Corps device is one of the old- wig-wag designs appeared only on large est uniform collar insignia used in the U.S. flags usually at least 4 feet square attached to Army. The torch in the middle comes from a pole 6 to 8 feet long. It takes a large man the god Mercury. The two square flags with with considerable strength to wave any such the interval boxes are not semaphore flags; a flag. Today one of their few uses is at

Signaling Service Mottoes Country Slogan Meaning Bangladesh Druto-O-Nishchit Speed and reliability Belgium Ominia Conjungo All together Brazil Sempre Servir Always serving Denmark Esse Non Videri To be, not to seem (SjaellandskeTelegrafregiment) India Tevra Chaukas Swift and secure Malaysia Pantas Dan Pasti Swift and sure Netherlands Nuntius Transmittendus The message must get through Nigeria — Service and security Pakistan Tez O Yaqini Speed and reliability Philippines —- Get that message through Royal Corps of Signals Certa Cito Swift and sure (U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe) Sweden Har Finns Inga There are no impossibilities Omojligheter United States Pro Patria Vigilans Vigilant for the country Venezeula La Vox Del Comando The voice of command

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American football games. The Washington U.S. Army Heraldry. Home page. [Online Redskins, for example, send out a dozen information; retrieved September 2005.] men with poles and Redskins flags of this http://www.qmfound.com/army _heraldry.htm. size to be waved in celebrations following Woods, David L. 1965. “Wig-Wag: The Waving the score of a touchdown or field goal. of Flags and Torches,” In A History of Tactical Today’s flag is printed on silk and is much Communication Techniques, chap. V. Orlando, lighter than the old denim or cotton signal FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno flags. While the designs of the sports team Press, 1974). flag and wig-wag flag differ, the handling of a sports team flag is similar to the way that one-flag wig-wag signals were used in trans- High-Frequency Direction mitting—with a wave to the left, a wave to Finding (HF DF) the right, and a “pause” centrally in place. As actual wig-wag flags are no longer in High-frequency direction finding (HF DF) use and are confined to a handful of Army was used extensively by both the U.S. Navy museums, it is perhaps not too surprising and Britain’s Royal Navy during World War these designs are confused with semaphore II, especially against the German U-boats in from time to time. Also some may have a the Atlantic, a battle that required real-time hard time mentally seeing a large flag as one tactical information by radio from boats in of two in the crossed-flag insignia worn on contact with convoys. the collar of every U.S. Army Signal Corps German Kriegsmarine radio traffic con- officer. sisted of standard signals or special short Cliff Lord, David L. Woods, signals, such as convoy sighting reports. and Christopher H. Sterling Standard signals contained between 40 to 320 letters (lasting from twenty-four seconds See also Army Signal Corps; Flags; Myer, Albert to three minutes). “Contact” short signals, James (1828–1880); United Kingdom: Royal giving a convoy’s position, course, and Corps of Signals speed, lasted only about twenty seconds and were difficult targets for accurate HF DF. Sources Eckholm, Erik. 2006. “A Federal Office Where The British used two main types of HF Heraldry of Yore is Only Yesterday.” New DF set: aural null models, where operators York Times, June 13, A14. tuned manually to signals using earphones, Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal and instantaneous twin-channel sets using Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps cathode ray tubes. In 1937, the Royal Navy’s (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: Helion. only HF DF stations were at Flowerdown Mills, T. F. “Heraldry and Vexillogy: A Selected (England), Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong Kong, Catalogue of Web Links.” [Online informa- but by late 1942 an additional eleven HF DF tion; retrieved September 2005.] http:// stations had been established in the United www.regiments.org/special/ref/flags Kingdom. Eventually, the Allied Atlantic HF .htm. DF nets consisted of fifteen American, RAF Heraldry Trust. Home page. [Online information; retrieved September 2005.] twenty British, and eleven Canadian sta- http://www.griffon.clara.net/rafh/badge tions, with plotting rooms in Washington _a.htm. DC, London, and Ottawa.

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In addition to aural models, the U.S. Navy required skilled operators to determine used semi-instantaneous cathode ray sets, whether a signal was on the ground wave designed by Henri Busignies. In the Busig- (generally from a transmitter no farther than nies sets, which were designated DAJ (land about 30 miles distant) or a sky wave (which sets) and DAQ (shipborne sets), spinning could be hundreds of miles away). The first goniometers converted an aural signal into U-boat sinking after an HF DF contact images on cathode ray displays. Cooperation occurred on 27 March 1942, when HMS on exchanging bearings with the Royal Navy Leamington and other escorts sank U-587. started around October 1940. The U.S. Navy Full production of FH4 cathode ray sets did Atlantic DF organization eventually com- not start until around May 1943: FH3 (not prised three networks: North American (six FH4 as sometimes claimed) played a vital stations), with a plotting center at the Naval role in the Battle of the Atlantic before July Communications Annex in Washington; 1943. Caribbean (six stations); and South Ameri- Shipborne HF DF and radar comple- can (three stations). mented each other perfectly. Centimetric HF DF stations operated at ranges of 200 radar enabled convoy escorts to combat to 3,000 miles. Even good bearings could deadly night attacks by surfaced U-boats, easily deviate by 4 degrees on a signal of a forcing the attackers to move 10 to 30 miles few seconds, resulting in a position differ- from convoys and to send more reports, ence of approximately 150 miles at 2,000 making them vulnerable to HF DF. The miles range. A British 1943 report, based on Kriegsmarine was reasonably well informed Ultra decrypts, found that fixes in the North about British shore HF DF, and later used Atlantic were between 50 and 170 miles countermeasures such as “off frequency” away from the positions reported by the U- transmissions against it. However, U-boat boats being targeted. Ionospheric factors lim- command was unaware of shipborne HF DF ited accuracy, as did physical obstructions until April 1944. “Spurt” transmitters never near receiving stations. came into effective service with the Kriegs- Installing HF DF in ships presented major marine. An operational research report difficulties, as ships are a hostile environ- based on Ultra estimated that without ship- ment with a mass of magnetic fields, re- borne HF DF, Allied convoy losses in early radiators, and communications equipment 1943 would have been 25 to 50 percent emitting radiations. Early shipborne sets left higher, with U-boat kills being reduced by an ambiguity of 180 degrees in a signal’s one-third. Commanders Kenneth Knowles bearing (e.g., the bearing might be 23 and Rodger Winn, the heads of the U.S. degrees or its reciprocal, 203 degrees). In late Navy and British Submarine Tracking Room, 1940, W. Struszynski, a brilliant former head respectively (both with full access to Ultra), of Polish State Telecommunications, joined stated that “accurate U-boat tracking would the British design team and solved the hith- be impossible without [shore] HF/DF.” erto intractable problem with a superb aerial Shore HF DF made a major contribution to design. breaking German naval Enigma signals, espe- By December 1942, sixty-four ships in the cially Shark (used by the Atlantic U-boats), by Western Approaches of the Atlantic were compelling the Kriegsmarine to use short sig- equipped with FH3 aural HF DF. These nals. Shark was broken from mid-December

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1942 until July 1943 only because the Atlantic High-speed Morse used a special Creed ver- U-boats employed short signals. DF gener- sion of Morse, which was a “two hole” code ally, and not just the naval variety, was the in paper-tape form and additionally had code breakers’ indispensable aid. sprocket holes for use with the auto-head, an Ralph Erskine instrument used for the transmission of mes- sages previously punched into paper-tape See also Code Breaking; Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; Germany: Navy; Signals form. During training, the Creed tape was Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra; United used for “sending” Morse signals in a class- Kingdom: Royal Navy; U.S. Navy room to students’ earphones. A perforator was a typewriter-type machine that, instead Sources of producing hard copy, produced a half- Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. inch-wide paper-punched tape that could 1947. Vol 94, Part IIIA. Erskine, Ralph. 1999. “Kriegsmarine Short then be fed into an auto-head. A reperforator Signal Systems—And How Bletchley Park machine was mainly used in static stations Exploited Them.” Cryptologia 23 (1): 65–92. and could be coupled to a receiver, which Erskine, Ralph. 2004. “Shore High-Frequency automatically produced a paper-tape ver- Direction-Finding in the Battle of the sion of the message being received so as to Atlantic: An Undervalued Intelligence Asset.” The Journal of Intelligence History 4 facilitate onward transmission on another (2): 1–32. circuit. The undulator was a machine cou- Redgment, P. G. 1995. “High-Frequency pled via a “bridge,” which converted the Direction Finding in the Royal Navy: incoming alternating current signal to direct Development of Anti-U-Boat Equipment.” In current for a wireless receiver. The standard The Applications of Radar and other Electronic receiver used in the “M” or Mobile Sections Systems in the Royal Navy in World War II, edited by F. A. Kingsley. Basingstoke, UK: was the Marconi CR100. The incoming signal Macmillan. was “printed” by the undulator as an ink Williams, Kathleen B. 1995. Secret Weapon: U.S. wavy line on an absorbent paper tape, which Navy High-Frequency Direction Finding in the the operator skillfully wound around his fin- Battle of the Atlantic. Annapolis, MD: U.S. gers as the message came in. The paper tape Naval Institute Press. then had to be “slip-read.” This was the art of reading an undulator tape and typing the message on an ordinary typewriter onto High-Speed Morse paper. The paper was usually on a continu- ous roll in order to accommodate long mes- During World War II, the British Royal Corps sages. The wavy line on the tape was a of Signals developed a means of rapidly readable Morse signal. sending and reading Morse code messages For these units, the normal Morse trans- to make signaling more efficient. “Golden mission speed by auto-head was 80 wpm, Arrow” units were taught the equipment but in good conditions, this could reach 100 associated with this high-speed operation, wpm. The trade-test speed for Class III oper- which could process 80 to 100 words per ators was 18 wpm for Morse (send and minute (wpm) in good conditions. receive); 55 wpm for perforating; and 45 The Creed high-speed equipment used in wpm for slip-reading. High-speed operations these operations required specialist training. were expensive in highly trained manpower

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and after World War II gave way to a variety sharing scheme so the vessels of different of newer technologies. nations could transmit with their otherwise Cliff Lord overlapping spark transmitters. Hooper See also Golden Arrow Sections; Morse Code; helped to establish a chain of coastal sta- Telegraph; United Kingdom: Royal Corps of tions for communication with the fleet. After Signals; Vehicles and Transport serving on various ships, he commanded the destroyer Fairfax during World War I, Source winning the Navy Cross. Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal For a decade after the war (to 1928) Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents, 318–320. Hooper directed the Radio Division of the Solihull, UK: Helion. Navy Department, and then served as direc- tor of Naval Communications (1928–1934). He originated the recommendation that led to the formation of the Radio Corporation of Hooper, Stanford C. (1884–1955) America (RCA) in 1919, intended to relieve American dependence on foreign compa- Stanford Hooper has been dubbed the father nies, and later published the detailed story of of U.S. Navy radio by historian L. S. Howeth, how RCA had come to be formed as a result who summarized Hooper’s role: “During of combined government and commercial the period 1915 to 1928, Hooper was the action. Hooper redirected the Naval Re- guiding spirit in developing naval radio search Laboratory from manufacturing to from little more than a toy to the essential research and tightly defined their priorities, communication medium it became.” prompting a brief revolt. At the same time he Hooper was born in Colton, California, argued for greater naval use of low fre- on 16 August 1884. He grew up in San quency radio, fearing the ability of enemies Bernardino and worked as a relief telegraph to jam the more widely used high-frequency operator for the Southern Pacific Railway receivers. Later research showed the value of during summer vacations. He graduated high-frequency long-distance communica- from the Naval Academy in 1905, and a year tions. Hooper often represented U.S. inter- later helped operate the wireless of the USS ests at international radio conferences. He Chicago in San Francisco Harbor, right after again directed the Radio Division from 1939 the massive earthquake. He taught electric- until his 1942 appointment as technical assis- ity, physics, and chemistry at the Naval tant to the vice chief of Naval Operations. Academy in 1910–1911. Hooper was a strict disciplinarian and sel- He served for two years (1912–1914) as dom sought or took advice on radio mat- the Navy’s first Atlantic Fleet radio officer ters, considering himself the final authority. (resuming that post again in 1923–1925). He retired as a rear admiral in June 1945. With some difficulty and good support, he Over his long career he won awards from the established coordination and procedures Franklin Institute (Philadelphia), as well as over heretofore independent ships’ wireless the French Legion of Honor, the Marconi operators. The tactical and strategic value of Medal of Merit, and the Institute of Radio U.S. Navy radio was first proven at the April Engineers Medal of Honor. Hooper died in 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz in Mexico, Miami Beach on 6 April 1955 at age seventy. where Hooper established a complex time- Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Jamming; Naval Radio Stations/ telegraph office wagons, carts filled with Service; Naval Research Laboratory (NRL); telegraph cable, and large plough horses Radio; World War I were used to help bury telegraph cable. Sim- ilar units operated during and after the Sources Douglas, Susan. 1985. “Technological Innova- American Civil War (1861–1865). Telegraph tion and Organizational Change: The Navy’s units in the 1870s and 1880s included horses Adoption of Radio, 1899–1919.” In Military as “standard equipment” to haul the needed Enterprise and Technological Change, edited by cable and signaling devices. Merritt Roe Smith, 117–173. Cambridge, MA: During the second Afghan War MIT Press. Hooper, S. C. 1922. “Keeping the Stars and (1878–1880), British engineers introduced Stripes in the Ether.” Radio Broadcast June: their first “telegraph train,” which was made 127–132. up of mule-drawn carts of telegraph, cable, Hooper, S. C. 1929. “Naval Communications— and heliograph equipment. The train could Radio Washington.” Proceedings of the carry as much as 30 miles of telegraph cable Institute of Radio Engineers 17 (September): for stringing to and from battlefields as 1595–1620. Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- needed. Smaller amounts of cable, or poles Electronics in the United States Navy. for several miles of service, could be carried Washington, DC: Government Printing in packs or reels on the backs of individual Office. animals. By the 1890s, cable cart units included a half-dozen horses and several dozen men, as well as the telegraph equip- Horses and Mules ment to be hauled. Fast carts towed by a sin- gle horse carrying a limited amount of cable Horses marked the first improvement in the were used to deploy lines rapidly. These speed and endurance of the individual mili- mobile units were employed during the Boer tary courier. Dispatch riders became a com- Wars. mon feature of both diplomacy and war from By World War I, the British army had a prehistoric times. Extensive horse-based clearly delineated system in place using postal and courier systems were in use in the horse- or mule-drawn equipment, though Far East and India by the twelfth century. by then these included both wired (telegraph Perhaps ironically, use of the horse in commu- and telephone) and early wireless services. A nication was revived by the development of serious problem with using animals in com- more modern (but heavier) communications munications, however, was upkeep. All systems—such as the telegraph and tele- armies used thousands of horses and mules phone, which needed wire, units, and switch- during World War I, and just provisioning ing equipment—although now more horses them, let alone replacing wounded or dead were carrying the means of communication, animals, became a substantial question of rather than messages themselves. Lighter and logistics. While cavalry units averaged a faster horses continued to carry messages man per horse, signal companies usually between telegraph and telephone stations, had far more horses than people. Huge num- and later between wireless stations. bers of military personnel were required to During the Crimean War (1854–1856), maintain animal stock. Slowly such units horses were vital to the construction of motorized, though horses and mules were British telegraph lines. Teams of two drew not phased out entirely in the British army

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Pack horses and mules were widely used to carry heavy or cumbersome telegraph and radio equipment. Shown here in 1916, U.S. Army Signal Corps mule carries instruments to be used in wireless telegraphy. (Library of Congress) until 1937. Many European armies were still equipment during and after World War II. using horses widely when World War II Even in the 1960s, camel-borne radio units began in 1939. included transmitter, receiver, and batteries. Other animals, including oxen, camels (in David L. Woods and Christopher H. Sterling the deserts of Somalia and the Sudan in the See also Couriers; Dogs; European Late early 1900s during both world wars) and Nineteenth-Century Wars; Heliograph and elephants (in colonial India and Burma) were Mirrors; Pigeons; Telegraph used by the British military to assist with communications. Extensively detailed orders Sources for the care of these animals became part of Cooper, Jilly. 1983. Animals at War. London: Heinemann. British signalers’ instructions. Camels were Harfield, Alan. 1989. Pigeon to Packhorse: useful in carrying poles and other long The Illustrated Story of Animals in Army items, and later were used to carry radio

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Communications. Chippenham, UK: Picton Time and again direct and real-time com- Publishing. munications between leaders in Moscow Woods, David L. 1965. “Messengers: Men, and Washington have proven effective in Horses, and Dogs.” In A History of Tactical Communications Techniques, chap. IV. resolving critical situations. The first situa- Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted tion in which the DCL was key involved a by Arno Press, 1974). standoff between Soviet and American naval fleets in the Mediterranean during the Arab- Israeli Six Day War in 1967. Five years later, Hotline/Direct Communications the hotline was essential to avoiding escala- Link (DCL) tion of the Yom Kippur War. In 1979, the hot- line was activated by Washington to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The last On 20 June 1963, the governments of the known U.S.-Soviet communication through United States and the Soviet Union signed a the DCL was in December 1990, but the hot- memorandum of understanding that estab- line continued in use between the United lished the Direct Communications Link States and a post-Communist Russia. More (DCL), better known as the “hotline.” This recently, Russian and American leaders con- telecommunications system was the first ferred via the “red phones” over stabilization direct channel of contact between the U.S. issues during the Iraq War (2003–present). president in Washington DC and the Soviet There were a number of accident-gener- leader in Moscow. ated interruptions to the physical cable link, The agreement established a full-time exposing the need for reliability. Significant telegraph-teleprinter circuit between the cap- modernization of the DCL occurred begin- itals routed through Britain, Denmark, Swe- ning in the 1970s to improve the system and den, and Finland and another reserve duplex make it more secure. One Soviet and one radio-telegraph circuit through Morocco. Ter- American satellite were stationed in geosyn- minals in each country ended in both capitals chronous earth orbit to replace the link at “red phones” accessible by the respective through Tangier, Morocco. At Fort Detrick, national leadership. On the American side, Maryland, the federal government used a coding equipment at first included the fifteen-acre site to construct one of the largest Norwegian-developed Electronic Teleprinter communications facilities in the country, the Cryptographic Regenerative Repeater Mixer, USA Earth Station, to act as the hub for the four units of which were installed. satellite system. The Russian terminal of The direct impetus for the establishment the DCL is run from the space communica- of the DCL was the Cuban Missile Crisis of tions center at Valdimir. October 1962, when the two superpowers By the mid-1980s, the new hotline infra- had come close to launching a nuclear war. structure consisted of even more complex The hotline was designed to prevent any satellite telephone channels and graphical misunderstandings that might lead to the imagery transmission capability. The satel- unraveling of the Cold War balance over any lites are completely visible between Wash- point of contention and the consequent pur- ington and Moscow for eight hours each day, poseful or inadvertent ordering of nuclear but alternate acquisition of each satellite by missile strikes. the DCL antennae provides a virtually seam-

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less circuit. Each side receives transmissions served in a variety of locations—rising in the other’s language. rapidly to his first command by 1748. He was In the United States, the 1110th U.S. Army elected to Parliament in 1762. Howe served as Signal Battalion operates and maintains the treasurer of the navy from 1765 to 1770, later satellite link. A presidentially appointed was named rear admiral, and rose to vice DCL Operational Oversight Committee admiral five years later. He commanded the oversees the DCL and reviews its proce- North American station of the Royal Navy dures; the DCL Configuration Control Board during the early (1776–1778) American Revo- was chartered to ensure systems capability. lution (though—or perhaps because—he was The DCL continues to be funded by the sympathetic to the American cause). Department of Defense on behalf of the At this time (July 1776) Howe rational- National Communications System. ized the chaotic state of naval signaling that Kent G. Sieg often involved use of up to fifty different See also Communication Satellites; Cuban flag designs. Each fleet, and often each cap- Missile Crisis (1962); National Communica- tain, used his own variation of flag signals— tions System (NCS); Signals Intelligence there was little standardization. Howe (SIGINT); Teleprinter/Teletype reduced the number of flags needed to Sources twenty-one and developed a standard flag Andrew, Christopher. 1996. For the President’s signal book, along with a second explanatory Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American book. The flags were keyed to specific pages Presidency from Washington to Bush. New in these books. Some flags were of new York: Perennial. design, often featuring two or three horizon- Proc, Jerry. “Electronic Teleprinter Crypto- tal stripes. The new system and books were graphic Regenerative Repeater Mixer (ETCRRM).” http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/ first issued while he commanded HMS Eagle, etcrrm.html. standing off Sandy Hook at the mouth of Richelson, Jeffrey T. 1999. The U.S. Intelligence New York Harbor. Community. Boulder, CO: Westview. Howe employed a table of squares, sixteen across and sixteen down, numbered from 1 to 256. On the left hand side were shown six- Howe, Admiral Lord Richard teen signal flags, and the same flags in the (1726–1799) same order were shown at the top of the table over squares numbered 1, 17, 33, 49, Richard Howe, who rose to serve twice as and so forth. Thus, one flag from the top Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, was a group and another from the side could indi- prominent Royal Navy flag officer who con- cate together any one of the 256 numbered ducted pioneering work with signal flag sys- groups. To signal numbers, Howe had tems. Between 1776 and 1793, Howe issued another ten-by-ten table, using different at least eight sets of instructions with dual flags. When numbers above 101 were signal books that sought to standardize required, a pennant indicating 100 was Royal Navy flag signal systems. added. All this section was reserved for the Howe was born in London on 8 March admiral, with a separate private ship sec- 1726. Aided by family connections, he entered tion presenting similar signals. Many of the Royal Navy at age fourteen in 1740 and these flag designs are still in use.

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A revision was issued in 1782, and Humans are easily overlooked in signal sys- another, issued about 1790, contained 200 to tems, though in one way or another, humans 300 signal groups. This incorporated a num- are present as operators in almost every such ber of flag ideas from French officers system. Humans can participate directly as a (Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais messenger, voice, or symbol—but in the end and probably Captain Sébastien François de are both senders and receivers. Bigot, Vicomte de Morogues,) by Richard Hand signals are perhaps the oldest signal Kempenfelt, who was working on signal sys- method as well as being one of the first tems in this same period. While the Admi- forms of human communication. In the ninth ralty ruled Kempenfelt’s systems were “too century, Eastern Roman Emperor Leo VI complex,” he was willing to credit the French argued in his Tactics that in order to prevent and support many of Howe’s ideas due to battlefield mistakes, hand signals would be his senior’s popularity. Various articles at needed. There are many alphabets, usually that time and since have confused the roles involving fingers, to allow those who cannot of Kempenfelt and Howe. For example, speak, the deaf, those working in high-noise Howe could not have retired and turned his environments, and so forth to exchange signal system over to Kempenfelt to finish, messages or directions. Albert J. Myer, who as the latter died eight years before the for- later invented the U.S. Army system of sin- mer. Thus, the 1790 flag system was Howe’s gle-flag wig-wag signaling and established reworking of Kempenfelt’s system, rather the U.S. Army Signal Corps, worked as a than the other way around. telegrapher in early life using a system Howe was knighted in 1797 (the first devised by a Scottish scientist, Alexander Royal Navy officer so honored). Admiral Bain. This so interested Myer that on his Lord Horatio Nelson credited Howe’s flag return to medical study, his doctoral thesis system for his 1798 victory over the French at was devoted to a new sign language for deaf the Battle of the Nile. A final development of mutes. Such efforts led Myer to determine Howe’s system, with 340 signals, appeared there might be a need for a code that in 1799 (the first official Admiralty version). involved tapping on a cheek, hand, or table, Howe died on 5 August 1799. thus serving the deaf, blind, and indeed Christopher H. Sterling almost everyone. He continued his research, devising a system nearly identical to the dot See also Flaghoist; Flags; Popham, Home Riggs and dash of the Morse code. (1762–1820); Trafalgar, Battle of (21 October 1805); United Kingdom: Royal Navy Hand signal systems have also been ex- panded by using a hat, neckerchief, flag, or Source some device to render the hand more visible. Syrett, David. 2005. Admiral Lord Howe: A By the 1800s, such human signal systems Biography. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute were being codified and published. English- Press. men including Jack Spratt, Lieutenant Colonel John McDonald, Royal Navy Lieu- tenant H. Cranmer Philipps, Knight Spencer, Human Signaling and Commander A. P. Eardley-Wilmot; Americans Captain Robert W. Jenks and J. V. Konvalinka; and French Captain Charles de

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Reynold-Chauvancy all developed varied men often send messages to one another systems. Even Albert Myer produced vari- from close-in ships using their arms alone. ous systems for use by a single person. Both David L. Woods British and American military forces pub- See also Ancient Signals; Bain, Alexander lished periodic guidebooks for such signals, (1811–1877); Couriers; Fire/Flame/Torch; including the systems used by landing signal Flags; Maori Signaling; Myer, Albert James officers aboard aircraft carriers and for (1828–1880); Semaphore (Mechanical replenishing ships at sea. Telegraphs); Voice Relay Other arm and hand signal systems have Sources been devised for use by tugboat crews, air- Adams, M. R. 1970. Through to 1970: Royal craft ground crews, police, heavy equipment Signals Golden Jubilee. London: Royal Corps operators, deep sea divers, astronauts, air- of Signals Institution. craft and helicopter pilots, Navy frogmen, Myer, Albert. 1872. A Manual of Signals. New and military prisoners of war. Many of these York: Van Nostrand. Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical same groups, including most military field Communication Techniques. Orlando, FL: units, also use arm and hand systems to Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, direct troops and vehicles. Indeed, signal- 1974).

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Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) only assured method of IFF. Submode C is an altitude encoder. Identification, friend or foe (IFF) systems By 1958, the U.S. Federal Aviation Admin- were developed to separate American from istration had implemented the Air Traffic enemy aircraft by assigning a unique identi- Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS), fier code to each U.S. aircraft’s radio which was the civilian equivalent of the mil- transponder. In 1937 the Naval Research itary system. The International Civil Aero- Laboratory developed the first IFF system. nautics Organization adopted the ATCRBS, Later iterations were developed as follow- thereby making IFF the basis for the world’s ons. The present system is considered a sec- air traffic control system. ondary radar system because it operates The IFF system is a query-and-response differently from and independently of the system. The secondary radar transmits a primary radar system that tracks aircraft skin series of selectable coded pulses. The tran- returns only. The same cathode ray tube can sponder on the aircraft receives and decodes be used to display the data from both radar the interrogation pulses. If the transponder systems. determines that the interrogation code is cor- IFF operates in four modes in military air- rect, it transmits a different series of coded craft plus a submode. Mode 1 is a nonsecure pulses in response. A cross-band beacon is method used by ships to track aircraft and employed, the interrogation pulses are trans- other ships. Mode 2 is used by aircraft to mitted at one frequency, and the reply pulses make carrier controlled approaches to ships are at a different frequency. during inclement weather. Mode 3 is the The IFF concept is in the process of being standard system and is also used by com- expanded to cover not just aircraft but also mercial aircraft to relay their position vehicles and even individual personnel on to ground controllers throughout the world the battlefield. By using the same IFF con- for air traffic control. Mode 4 is a secure, cepts, it would be possible to reduce the encrypted identification system and is the number of “friendly fire” incidents. The

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advances made in computers and miniatur- overhauled the Indian army with British offi- ization have made it possible to reduce the cers. For the remainder of the nineteenth size and cost of the transponders so that it century, military units were organized under becomes practical to distribute them among the governments of Bengal, Bombay, and vehicles and troops. Madras (these were unified only at the end Tommy R. Young II of the century). See also Airplanes; Naval Research Laboratory Signals detachments operated as part of (NRL) the sappers and miners (engineers). The ear- liest record of army telegraphy dates to 1868 Source when the first internal military telegraph Gebhard, Louis A. 1979. “Radio Identification- routes were built. By the 1870s, signal units IFF.” In Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Labora- utilizing telegraph and heliograph were a tory, 251–262. Washington, DC: Government part of army forces in various frontier expe- Printing Office. ditions. The first school for army signaling (focusing mainly on visual methods) opened in 1881. An improvised sending and receiv- India ing set (telephone) was developed during the Jowaki Campaign of 1877–1878 by Cap- As one of the world’s two most populous tain J. W. Savage of the Royal Engineers. countries, India ranks as an important center Telephones were also used during the Sec- of military communications. After millennia ond Afghan War in 1878—certainly some of of using couriers or other basic means of sig- the earliest application of the technology to naling, and then an extensive system of sem- military use. Telephone equipment was aphores early in the nineteenth century, being used more extensively by the turn of electrical communications entered India in the twentieth century. Sapper and miner tele- the mid-nineteenth century and have since graph units served in expeditions through- expanded to become essential elements of out the subcontinent as well as in Cyprus, the nation’s military forces. Aden, China, parts of Africa, and the Middle By the time of the horrendous Indian East. Mutiny of 1857, there were some 4,000 miles As part of another overall military reorga- of commercial telegraph line in the subcon- nization, on 15 February 1911, the Indian Sig- tinent, most constructed within the previ- nal Service was organized, though still under ous five years. The army controlled some the auspices of the sappers and miners. By lines and also made extensive use of visual this time, units included some wireless capa- communications, including the heliograph. bilities. Indian units served throughout World Aware of the value of the lines, rebels War I on the Western Front, in East Africa, and destroyed telegraph links in areas they con- in the Middle East, where service continued trolled, though not before warnings were into the early 1920s. Indeed, Indian signal flashed from Delhi to all districts and back to troops served in all theaters save Gallipoli London. On suppression of the mutiny the and the Balkans. next year, the British government took over Increased technical sophistication and administration of the huge colony from the enhanced responsibilities of the signaling East India Company, and at the same time function saw the 17 April 1920 formation of

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the Indian Signal Corps as a separate military over by Indians. When on 26 January 1950 arm. The corps, still making substantial use of the country attained full sovereignty, the British Royal Corps of Signals officers, formed Indian Signal Corps was renamed the Corps a signal company for each army division with of Signals with the motto Teevra Chaukas a nucleus of a wireless company to aid the (“Swift and Secure”). The corps saw duty line of communication. Indian Posts and during the Korean War (1950–1953) as well Telegraphs took over administration and as in later United Nations peacekeeping operation of most telegraph and telephone efforts in the Congo and Middle East. lines in the country. In September 1935, the The corps, reputed to include 100,000 first Indian officer (from the Indian Military members in the early twenty-first century, is Academy), Second Lieutenant A. C. Iyappa organized into officers, junior commissioned (later director of Signals and signal officer-in- officers, and other ranks. Officers are em - chief) was commissioned into the corps. The ployable in all aspects of communication or corps served on the Northwest Frontier, as administration, while the other ranks are well as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and China. organized into specific trades such as Oper- Despite plans for updating, the Indian Sig- ator Radio and Line, Technician Electronics nal Corps was still ill equipped and under- and Systems, and so forth. The Corps of Sig- staffed when the war began in 1939. As nals is the electronic warfare and information Indian units were deployed in the Middle technology arm of the Indian army, utilizing East and elsewhere, they adopted mecha- an array of computerized/automated state- nized transport and updated modes of sig- of-the-art systems. Electronic data processing naling from the Royal Corps of Signals. One became a corps responsibility in 1964, and signals group was lost in the surrender of the corps commissioned the army’s first Singapore in early 1942. Many Indian units computer in 1971. The corps provides net- were involved in the fighting in and around working, an automated message switching Burma from 1942 to the end of World War II. system or automated message handling sys- Indian Air Formation Signals units were tem, and installation of the state-of-the-art developed to work with the British Royal exchanges with the latest interactive voice Air Force. response systems. As the corps grew to fulfill its expanded Two major factors that have served to deployment, so too did the employment of keep the Corps of Signals at the top of its Indians in more technical fields, and thus form are India’s substantial and expanding their training at multiple sites. The Indian high technology sector and continued ten- Women’s Army Corps helped to provide sions (and occasional clashes) with Pakistan. needed teleprinter, switchboard, and cipher State-of-the-art communication networks operators. New teleprinter equipment as using microwave, ultra-high frequency, opti- well as multichannel and long-distance cal fiber and satellite systems, and switching radios were adopted as supplies became systems with security overlays are being available. Signals units assisted in the diffi- implemented. Secure radio and VSAT (very cult political transition of 1946–1947 as India small aperture terminal) equipment have was divided into Pakistan and India. also been introduced to further the reach of On India’s independence on 14 August the Indian Defense Communication Net- 1947, the Indian Signals Corps was taken work to cover communication requirements

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of all three services (army, air force, and navy) in American society. This is a revolution that at the strategic level. In addition to applica- is still under way as it continually develops tions in and around India, signals personnel and reshapes the American way of warfare. go abroad as field detachments for United Computer, microchip, and telecommuni- Nations peacekeeping forces (as in Lebanon cation innovations all contributed to the and Sierra Leone) and with Indian army train- information revolution, with “information” ing teams in other countries. understood as both message and medium Christopher H. Sterling (system). Contemporary IRMA is informa- See also Heliograph and Mirrors; Telegraph; tion driven, and the changes it is creating in United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals warfare are logical consequences as societies have become inherently information based. Sources IRMA imposes changes in equipment but Corps of Signals Committee. 1975. History of the Corps of Signals: Volume 1 Early Times to more importantly reshapes the way opera- Outbreak of Second World War (1939). New tions are conducted and overall strategy as Delhi: Corps of Signals Committee, Signals objectives have to be redefined. The informa- Directorate, Army Headquarters. tion revolution operates on different levels GlobalSecurity.org. “Corps of Signals.” [Online and includes such elements as satellite sys- information; retrieved November 2004.] tems, the global positioning system, warning http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ world/india/signal.htm. and control systems (such as Airborne Warn- Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. “Indian ing and Control System, Joint STARS, Rivet Corps of Signals.” In The Royal Corps of Joint, Cobra Ball); command, control, com- Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) munications, computers, intelligence, sur- and Its Antecedents, 351–352. Solihull, UK: veillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); and Helion. Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. “Signals in India” In The sensors. According to the U.S. Army project Royal Corps of Signals: A History of Its Force XXI (1994), every battlefield vehicle Antecedents and Development (circa will be equipped to allow it to locate itself 1800–1955), appendix 2, 493–502. London: geographically while maintaining communi- Royal Signals Institution. cation among soldiers and between soldiers Subramanyam V. A. 1986. The Signals: A History and command posts. of the Corps of Signals. Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd. The information revolution also gave birth to the idea of information warfare (IW), a new type of war, defined by General Colin Powell Information Revolution as “actions taken to achieve information supe- in Military Affairs (IRMA) riority by affecting adversary information, information-based processes, information sys- The American Information Revolution in tems, and computer-based networks while Military Affairs (IRMA) began in the 1980s, defending one’s own information, informa- but a real debate began after the 1990–1991 tion-based processes, information systems, Gulf War. IRMA combines three compo- and computer-based networks” (Adams 1999, nents: (1) the information revolution itself, 56). Hence, information becomes both the with both military and civilian applications; weapon and the target. (2) the use of high-technology conventional The 1991 Gulf War represented the first weaponry; and (3) how warfare is perceived application of high technology to war. New

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types of weapons such as precision laser- Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, eds. 1997. guided bombs and unmanned aerial vehi- In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the cles (e.g., Predator) were used on a battlefield Information Age. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. for the first time. Employment of new equip- Cohen, Eliot A. 1996. “A Revolution in ment was backed up by C4ISR capabilities. Warfare.” Foreign Affairs 75 (2): 37–54. High-precision, deep-strike, long-range Commonwealth Institute. “The RMA Debate.” weapons, based on innovations in computer [Online information; retrieved September and communication technologies, made it 2005.] http://www.comw.org/rma/index .html. possible to keep soldiers far from the targets. Gray, Colin. 2002. Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions War became somewhat remote controlled. in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History. Given that IRMA is largely an American London: Frank Cass. revolution, it is important to understand the Krepinevich, Andrew F. 1994. “Cavalry to American attitude toward war. This psy- Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolu- chosociological factor makes for the third tions.” The National Interest 37 (Fall): 30–42. Schwartzstein, Stuart J. D., ed. 1996. The Informa- dimension of this revolution. Political leaders tion Revolution and National Security: Dimen - are under public opinion pressure that dis- sions and Directions. Washington, DC: Center courages U.S. engagement in a war that may for Strategic and International Studies. result in many American lives lost. This axiom—the intolerance of casualties—is extremely powerful because it is directly con- Infrared Signal Systems nected with the legitimization of political actions and makes civil-military relations a Infrared signal systems were used by the central factor in designing and implementing U.S. Navy during and after World War II IRMA. It is also the part of a wider notion in with the original equipment being replaced the West, which is to make war more humane. by more capable devices in the mid-1970s. Standoff (weapons designed to balance or The origins of infrared technology date to match that of an enemy, not intended for use, the mid-nineteenth century, but focused mil- but to keep an enemy from employing some itary research began during World War I. other weapon), unmanned vehicles, and non- With U.S. Army support, Theodore W. Case lethal weapons are used to reduce the risk to developed infrared detector devices with human lives and thereby to maintain public which messages could be sent for several support for military involvement. miles. British research in the 1930s centered ?ukasz Kamie?ski on infrared aircraft detection. During World War II, infrared research See also Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS); Army Battle Command System and development programs were under way (ABCS); Communication Satellites; Global in both Germany and the United States. Dur- Positioning System (GPS); Gulf War ing the war, Germany was only able to apply (1990–1991); Iraq War (2003–Present); Solid the technology for limited optical telephony. State Electronics; “System of Systems” In the United States, such systems became a technological reality during the mid–World Sources Adams, James. 1999. The Next World War: The War II period, when both means to change Warriors and Weapons of the New Battlefields in visible light to invisible light and a device to Cyberspace. London: Arrow. reverse the process were discovered. The

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transmitter lamp used a hood that filtered Though slow and tedious, the system allowed out the visible spectrum, leaving infrared a “no visible light” and near-radio-silence rays to pass through. The U.S. Navy code environment while enabling limited tacti- name for the system was NANCY HANKS, cal/administrative communication within or just NANCY (after Abraham Lincoln’s task forces. The method could also be used mother, 1784–1818), though why is no longer with shore signal stations. Improved equip- clear. A radio message would be sent to the ment was introduced in the mid-1950s. Dur- intended recipient that a NANCY HANKS ing the 1970s, infrared systems began to give message awaited transmission. way to more advanced systems. In the late A 1-foot infrared hood was fitted over the 1980s, the receiver was replaced by the night standard Navy battery-powered signal vision device or night vision goggles. searchlight. This provided a very narrow David L. Woods (highly directional) signaling system (proba- See also Talk Between Ships (TBS) bly not more than 2 to 3 degrees of aperture) which had to be continuously trained on the Sources receiving ship, lest it wander off the mark Wolfe, W. L. 1965. Handbook of Military Infrared Technology. Washington, DC: Office of Naval due to relative movement changes and ship Research. roll. International Morse was used as the Wolfe, W. L., and G. J. Zeiss. 1978. The Infrared message medium for all infrared communi- Handbook. Washington, DC: Office of Naval cation. A pair of steady, omnidirectional, Research. point-of-train lights, also with infrared cov- ers, was mounted on ships’ masts to provide a transmitting station with a continuous loca- Institute of Electrical and tion of multiple ship receiving station(s). Electronic Engineers (IEEE) During night “darken ship” conditions, it was impossible to determine this optically. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Similar equipment was mounted in pairs on Engineers (IEEE) was formed in 1963 from each yardarm to transmit to a number of sta- two older American professional engineer- tions simultaneously, using nondirectional ing groups. It is by far the largest world procedures. The range of this system was membership organization in and for the field considerably less than with the signal search- of electrical engineering. light hood-mounted system, but allowed an The earlier American Institute of Electrical officer in tactical command (OTC) to dis- Engineers (AIEE) was founded in Philadel- patch traffic to all ships in a formation out to phia in 1884. Among early members were a distance of about 3 to 4 miles. During peri- Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edi- ods of night formation steaming, the OTC son, who served as vice presidents. While issued “NANCY calling periods” on the many members were active in the telegraph hour, during which time traffic for all ships business, AIEE members included other could be sent without having to use voice inventor-entrepreneurs, the relatively few radio call-up procedures. college-trained engineers of the day, teach- NANCY was used between ships and ers, physicists, and even company managers. shore signal stations when checking in during Publications were planned and even a night port entries, as well as in forward areas. museum and library were projected. AIEE

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prospered, but by the early twentieth cen- nautics and Space Administration (NASA), tury, it was focusing more on power and with the end of the Apollo moon landing heavy machinery engineering. missions. A shrinking employment base par- Just before World War I, the growth of alleled, and may have contributed to, debate wireless led to the creation of the Institute of in IEEE publications about the role of eco- Radio Engineers (IRE) in 1913, formed from nomic and social (even critical) research to two largely local organizations, the Society supplement (some said supplant) the purely of Wireless and Telegraph Engineers and the technical work done by most members. In Wireless Institute. From the start of IRE there 1980, IEEE established what has become was some overlapping membership in (and an extensive history program (on both the on occasion tension between) the two organization and the field of electronics). It groups. As an example of just how rapidly also began holding a huge annual military the field of radio was expanding and chang- communications conference. By 1984, IEEE ing, IRE published a massive (more than enjoyed a membership of more than a quar- 1,500 pages) fiftieth anniversary issue of its ter-million people. Proceedings that not only reviewed develop- In the twenty-first century, IEEE has ments of the previous half-century (includ- become a truly international association with ing four papers on military electronics) but more than 360,000 members in about 175 also projected ahead to the world of 2012. countries. IEEE produces nearly a third of AIEE formed its Military Electronics the world’s annual publications on electrical Group in 1956 as one indicator of the grow- engineering, computers, and control tech- ing symbiosis between the military services nology; holds more than 300 major confer- and corporate and university electronics ences annually; and has created nearly 900 research. Rapid changes in both electronics consensus-based active technical standards, miniaturization and the growing missile pro- with another 700 under development. grams of each arm of the military spurred Christopher H. Sterling growth throughout the 1950s and 1960s. After several years of negotiation, a merger See also Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) between the clearly declining AIEE and the Sources rapidly expanding IRE (with about 150,000 “Fiftieth Anniversary of the AIEE.” 1934. members at the time and a thousand new Electrical Engineering 53 (May): 641–848. members joining each month) led to the Gannett, Elwood K. 1988. “Proceedings of the creation of the Institute of Electrical and IEEE: The First 75 Years.” Proceedings of the Electronic Engineers. The new organization IEEE 76 (October): 1268–1279. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. adopted the decentralized professional groups “IEEE History Center.” [Online information; of the IRE rather than the hierarchical AIEE retrieved April 2007.] http://www.ieee.org/ structure. Formation of the new Society of organizations/history_center/index.html. Broadcast Engineers was one result of the dis- Institute of Radio Engineers. 1962. “Fiftieth sent arising from the larger merger. Anniversary Issue.” Proceedings of the IRE 50 (May): 1–1450. In the 1970s opportunities for electrical McMahon, A. Michael. 1984. The Making of a engineers diminished with the shrinkage of Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering. both the aerospace industry, in the aftermath New York: Institute of Electrical and of the Vietnam War, and the National Aero- Electronic Engineers.

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Whittemore, Laurens E. 1957. “The Institute of section devoted to wireless appeared in 1919. Radio Engineers—Forty-Five Years of A series of annual lectures in honor of inven- Service.” Proceedings of the IRE 45 (May): tor Michael Faraday began in 1923. 597–635. During World War II, membership rose by 40 percent (it had fallen during World War I), in part due to active training of civil- Institution of Electrical ians to assist with the war effort. Members Engineers (IEE) interested in communications, and especially radio, began to outnumber those concerned Formed initially by a group of English tele- with power engineering. A full 20 percent of graph engineers, the Institution of Electrical the membership was in one or another of the Engineers (IEE) has since become the premier armed forces. British membership organization of electri- After the war, IEE membership grew from cal engineers. Many of its members have 20,000 in 1940 to more than 82,000 four worked or been affiliated closely with various decades later—an indicator of the central role branches of British military services. Certainly of electricity in Britain’s postwar expansion. many people concerned with military com- Considerable tension existed between the IEE munications have been IEE members. and the somewhat parallel British Institution The Society of Telegraph Engineers was of Radio Engineers (formed in 1925, it became founded in May 1871 in London. It had 300 the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engi- members a year later, from an industry neers in 1988) as both sought to speak for employment base of about 2,500, one-fifth of radio engineers. Partially because of that com- whom were women. As the field expanded, petition, IEE reorganized several times after it changed its name a decade later to the 1945 as the electrical engineering field contin- Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Elec- ued to expand and splinter. tricians, of which there were nearly a thou- IEE has become the largest professional sand members. The name Institution of engineering society in Europe with 120,000 Electrical Engineers was adopted in 1889; members early in the twenty-first century. It within two years the organization had more holds conferences and publishes journals, than 2,000 members. An active library was magazines, and a number of online services. part of the organization from the start. On 1 April 2006, IEE merged with the Insti- As just another indicator of expanding tution of Incorporated Engineers to become opportunities, before World War I, more than the Institution of Engineers and Technology twenty other electrical engineering organiza- (IET). tions were formed in Britain. IEE members Christopher H. Sterling were active in all aspects of World War I— indeed the association gave up its headquar- See also Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) ters building for five years to government needs. IEE had first moved into its Savoy Sources Place headquarters in 1908 (some rooms were Appleyard, Rollo. 1939. The History of the leased to the new British Broadcasting Com- Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1871–1931. pany from 1923 to 1932; the building was London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. substantially reconstructed in 1961). An IEE

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Institution of Engineering and Technology. those of the United States, Britain, the former [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of http://www.theiet.org/. China. While most American vessels are Reader, W. J. 1987. A History of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1871–1971. London: Peter operated by the U.S. Navy, many are actually Peregrinus for the Institution of Electrical serving the needs of the National Security Engineers. Agency (NSA) or related entities. The Soviet Union operated a fleet of electronic surveil- lance vessels, often thinly disguised (given Intelligence Ships their extensive antenna arrays) as fishing trawlers or other merchant ships. China has An intelligence-gathering ship is generally at least five such vessels, each operating on an ocean-going vessel carrying electronic a different ocean. means to detect radio signals (and therefore The U.S. Navy has had many radar and military activity) in its vicinity. Several radio vessels in commission over the years. navies have operated such ships, including Most recently some SWATH (twin hull)

The specialized communications ship USS Pueblo is shown here in 1967, prior to its seizure off the coast of Wonsan by North Korea in January 1968. (Naval Historical Center)

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vessels have been used in antisubmarine American ship to be boarded since 1807) by warfare and related tasks. Others have North Korean forces and taken to their port assisted with recording missile launches or of Wonsan. The crew was held for eleven space capsule recovery, still others in various months before being released—the ship was kinds of research, both for the Navy and other never released and most of the top-secret federal agencies. Some began life as World equipment on board was lost. War II cargo vessels, which years later were Faced with the loss of two such vessels in rebuilt and loaded with electronic surveillance six months, making vividly clear how poorly equipment. One series of ships was dubbed they were or could be defended (and thus AGER (Auxiliary General Environmental how vulnerable their highly secret listening Research) or AGTR (Auxiliary General equipment was), the United States withdrew Telecommunication Research) vessels, denot- many of its intelligence vessels over the next ing joint Navy and NSA operation. They were few years, relying more on aircraft and satel- designed to conduct research in the reception lite surveillance sources. of electromagnetic signals. Equipped with the Christopher H. Sterling latest antenna systems and measuring devices, See also Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); National they were highly sophisticated. Three of them Security Agency (NSA); Russia/Soviet became famous—or infamous—in the 1960s. Union: Navy; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); The USS Oxford (AGTR-1) was one of the U.S. Navy important surveillance sources used during Sources the Cuban Missile Crisis as she cruised off Bamford, James. 2001. Body of Secrets: Anatomy shore and picked up signals of Russian mis- of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency sile activity on the island in the fall of 1962. from the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New She later served in the Far East during the Century. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Vietnam War. Gerhard, William. 1981. Attack on the USS On 9 June 1967, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) Liberty. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. was sailing off the coast of Egypt, monitor- Hounam, Peter. 2003. Operation Cyanide: Why the ing radio traffic during the Six Day War in Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused the Middle East. She was attacked over a World War III. London: Vision. period of two hours, during which time 34 of Schumacher, F. Carl, Jr., and George C. Wilson. her crew were killed and 172 were wounded. 1971. Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the The attacking aircraft were Israeli—the U.S.S. Pueblo. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. attack came as Israel was beating Egyptian U.S. House Armed Services Special Subcommit- forces in the Sinai Desert just to the south of tee. 1969. Inquiry into the U.S.S. Pueblo and the ship’s location off shore. A huge contro- EC-121 Plane Incidents: Hearings. 91st versy arose—and remains—over why the Congress, 1st Session (March–April). attack took place and over much of what happened—or did not happen—in the immediate aftermath of the attack. International Code of Signals On 23 January 1968, while cruising off the (ICS) coast of North Korea, the USS Pueblo (AGER- 2), which was tuning North Korean radio In 1817, Frederick Marryat (1792–1848), a traffic, was attacked and boarded (the first young British Royal Navy officer, introduced

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the first edition of his Code of Signals for the flag codes for a selection of standard and Merchant Service. While designed for com- often-used sentences; and (6) flags providing mercial shipping, the flag code was soon uti- the basic vocabulary. It was this organized lized by naval vessels as well. Thanks to its approach perhaps more than the actual sig- versatility, this signal flag code continued nal flags that brought Marryat’s code such a being used until at least 1879. Many seafar- broad following. Although the growing ers continued using Marryat’s system number of warships and merchant ships beyond 1879, even though it had been offi- made for some problems, Marryat’s code cially superseded. His code provided the was able to expand to handle them. All flag basis for the present International Code of codebooks became enormous (there were Signals (ICS), which can be sent by signal hundreds of British and foreign warships, flag, blinker light, semaphore, Morse code, and thousands of merchant vessels—and all or radio. The code was and continues to be the specific locations were noted). The earlier intended to ease communication concern- codes were dictionaries, while (compara- ing navigation and safety, especially across tively speaking) Marryat’s was an encyclo- languages. pedia. Indeed, for many decades, Marryat Marryat’s system was well marketed and had this field to himself. was reissued at least eleven times, perhaps A British government committee in 1857 due to his father’s influence in maritime not only debated the qualities needed for merchant shipping affairs—but more likely such a system but also assessed more than a due to the merit of the entire system. Mar- dozen existing official and unofficial signal ryat’s system used both numeric and alpha- flag codes. With a brief report, Marryat’s betic codes, which allowed ready expansion code was adopted with some variations. as needed. Combined with flags indicating With the Marryat system, eighteen individ- 10 or 100 or more, Marryat’s approach could ual signal flags could signal more than be readily expanded while all prior flag 70,000 possible messages. The code was codes were limited to stock messages that revised three decades later by the British might number in the hundreds. Further, one Board of Trade, and again at an 1889 confer- could make up new flag messages at will— ence in Washington DC. It was widely dis- with more simplicity than in the past. Mar- tributed by the late 1890s. As one example of ryat code revisions did not change existing its naval use, the code was used at the 1905 signals, but added new information that was Battle of Tsushima, when Russian fleet sur- needed as steamships replaced sail. As a vivors sent the message “XGE” (“I surren- result, versions of his code were used for up der”) to the astonished though victorious to a half-century while other flag codes often Japanese. saw brief usage. With the rise of wireless and other tech- Marryat’s signal code was divided into nologies, the ICS system began to be applied six parts: (1) the flag codes identifying spe- to other means of communication, and was cific English man-of-war ships; (2) a similar thus subject to further revision and ex- list of flag codes for foreign man-of-war pansion. The International Radiotelegraph ships; (3) flags for English merchant ships; Conference in 1927 considered revision pro- (4) a flag list of lighthouses, ports, head- posals, and three years later a new edition lands, rocks, shoals, reefs, and so forth; (5) was issued in seven languages: English,

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French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, tions Techniques, chap. III. Orlando: and Norwegian. This new ICS was formally Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno adopted at the Madrid International Radio- Press, 1974). telegraph Conference held in 1932. It was published in two volumes—one for visual International Telecommunication signaling and the other for radio signals. The Union (ITU) Administrative Radio Conference of the International Telecommunication Union sug- Growing out of the nineteenth-century Inter- gested in 1947 that the ICS should be con- national Telegraph Union, the modern ITU is trolled by the Intergovernmental Maritime a specialized agency of the United Nations Consultative Organization (IMCO, which and serves as the primary global organization later became the International Maritime (nearly all nations are members) concerned Organization). In January 1959, this change with international technical standards and finally took place. The IMCO Assembly of development in telecommunication. 1961 approved further revisions and added From March to May of 1865, the French publications in Russian and Greek, for a total government hosted a conference of twenty of nine languages. Numerous international nations in Paris to resolve problems of mul- organizations contributed to the updating tiple European telegraph systems of technical process. The ICS was revised several times in standards, codes, and rate structures. The the late 1960s, including dropping the former agreement reached, based in part on bilateral vocabulary segment, so that each signal has treaties dating to 1849, formed the Interna- its own complete meaning, thus reducing tional Telegraph Union, today the world’s the size of the code. oldest international organization. It estab- David L. Woods lished a priority of messages that is still See also Code, Codebook; Flaghoist; Flags; observed: state (diplomatic), telegraph International Telecommunication Union administration, and private or commercial (ITU); Morse Code; Popham, Home Riggs messages. It also adopted the Morse system (1762–1820); Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 May as the basis of international operation. Later 1905) conferences in Vienna (which established Sources Berne as ITU headquarters), Rome (when National Imagery and Mapping Agency. 2003. Britain joined), and St. Petersburg (the last International Code of Signals. Publication 102. such plenipotentiary meeting until 1932) Bethesda, MD: National Imagery and revised and strengthened ITU. By the early Mapping Agency. Pocock, Tom. 2001. Captain Marryat: Seaman, twentieth century, the organization had fifty- Writer, & Adventurer. Harrisburg, PA: two country members with nationalized tele- Stackpole Books. graph systems, and twenty-five observers Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords of who allowed private carriers (including the the Committee of Privy Council for Trade to United States). Inquire into & Report upon the subject of a Code One early difficulty for ITU was how to of Signals to be Used at Sea. 1857. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. treat coded communications (whether diplo- Woods, David L. 1965. “Flaghoists and Signal matic, military, or commercial). Only in the Books.” In A History of Tactical Communica- 1920s, after considerable debate, did it adopt

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the Cortina (for the town in Italy where a telecommunication development. The orga- subcommittee met) report recommending nization adopted its first strategic plan two use of no more than five-letter groups. years later. A series of international conferences con- Christopher H. Sterling cerning wireless telegraphy and telephony See also Morse Code; National Telecommunica- (radio) began in Berlin in 1903, outside ITU, tions and Information Administration with subsequent conferences held in 1906, (NTIA), Spectrum Management 1912, and 1927. Only at the ITU administra- tive meeting in Paris in 1925 did ITU attempt Sources Channing, Ian. 1995. International Telecom - to enforce similar standardization of opera- munication Union: 130 Years, 1965–1995. tions for telephone service. Finally, in 1932 at London: International Systems and Madrid, ITU merged with the International Communications. Radiotelegraph Conference to become the Codding, George Arthur, Jr. 1952. The Interna- modern International Telecommunication tional Telecommunication Union: An Experiment Union with equal interest in telegraph, tele- in International Cooperation. Leiden: E. J. Brill (reprinted by Arno Press, 1972). phone, and radio services. After a hiatus Codding, George A., Jr., and Anthony M. forced by World War II, a plenipotentiary Rutkowski. 1982. The International Telecommu- conference of seventy-four nations, held in nication Union in a Changing World. Dedham, Atlantic City in 1947, reorganized ITU and MA: Artech House. laid the groundwork for the organization to Friedman, William F. 1928. The History of Codes and Code Languages, The Inter- affiliate with the new United Nations, to national Telegraph Regulations Pertaining shift its base of operation to Geneva, and to Thereto. . . Washington, DC: Government establish an International Frequency Regis- Printing Office (reprinted by Aegean Park tration Board (IFRB). The IFRB seeks to Press). record all uses of radio spectrum by all International Telecommunication Union. Home page. [Online information; retrieved April nations in an attempt to reduce or eliminate 2007.] http://www.itu.int/aboutitu/. interference. Michaelus, Anthony R. 1965. From Semaphore to Military services became increasingly Satellite: On the Occasion of the Centenary of the interested in (and sometimes involved with) International Telecommunication Union. ITU activities as their own use of spectrum- Geneva: International Telecommunication based services became more important in Union. the years after World War II. The 1950s and 1960s saw a constant series of ITU-related conferences, most devoted to specific services. Internet Developments of such new technologies as satellite communication were incorporated The Internet’s origin can be traced directly to into ITU regulations. By the 100th anniver- the efforts of the U.S. Defense Advanced sary of ITU in 1965, it had 129 members— Research Projects Agency (ARPA; renamed forty years later the number was nearly 189. DARPA in 1972). It became apparent by the The ITU took on its present structure in 1992 1960s that ARPA researchers at different when it reorganized into three sectors: radio- research centers had to be able to communi- communication, technical standards, and cate with each other, as well as with various

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contractors. The most efficient method of message was sent from UCLA to SRI. Two communications would be through links more nodes were added at the University of between the centers’ mainframe computers. California, Santa Barbara and the Univer- In 1962 ARPA opened a computer research sity of Utah, and by the end of 1969 what we program and appointed John Licklider from know as the Internet was taking its first the Massachusetts Institute of Technology steps. In 1970, the first host-to-host protocol, (MIT) to head the organization. Licklider Network Control Protocol (NCP), was com- had just published his first thoughts on what pleted. In 1972 Ray Tomlinson of BBN wrote he dubbed the “Galactic Network” in which the first e-mail program. computers were networked and everyone Before a truly open-architecture network had access to them. At the same time, could be developed, changes would have to Leonard Kleinrock, working at ARPA, was be made in the NCP which could only developing the concept of sending informa- address networks and computers at a desti- tion from one point to another in packages or nation IMP on the ARPANET. Bob Kahn packets. The message would be broken into from DARPA and Vinton Cerf from Stanford tiny units that would be transmitted sepa- began work on a new protocol that would rately, with the packets reassembled on the become the Transmission Control Protocol/ receiving end. Packets could be sent over Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The first interna- more than one transmission line and in any tional connections to the ARPANET were order. Such a system would take advantage made when University College of London of any available means of transmission and and the Royal Radar Establishment of make unauthorized interception of the infor- Norway were connected. In a paper pre- mation more difficult. sented by Cerf and Kahn on the Transmis- In 1967 a plan for a computer network sion Control Protocol, the term Internet was called ARPANET was published. When used for the first time in 1974. On 1 January these plans were made public, researchers at 1983, the ARPANET made the transition MIT, the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) from NCP to TCP/IP. In the same year, the in the United Kingdom, and the RAND Cor- University of Wisconsin created the Domain poration discovered that they had all been Name System, which allowed packets to be working independently for a number of directed to a domain name where they years to develop a wide area network of would be translated into IP numbers. The computers. The switching system took its transition to the new protocol allowed the name from the work done at NPL and ARPANET to split into the MILNET for became known as packet switching. In operational needs and an ARPANET that December 1968, the firm of Bolt Beranek and still supported research requirements in Newman (BBN) won the contract to develop 1984. the interface message processors (IMPs), A number of networks, for example, commonly called packet switches. The first USENET, BITNET (“Because Its Time Net- IMP was installed at the Network Manage- work”), CSNET (Computer Science Research ment Center at the University of California Network), Tymnet, TELENET, and JANET in Los Angeles (UCLA) by BBN in September the United Kingdom, had grown up in the 1969. A second host was added at the Stan- late 1970s and early 1980s. TELENET was ford Research Institute (SRI) and the first the first commercial packet-switched net-

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work, the civilian equivalent of ARPANET. Internet and the WWW as a means of acquir- During the same period the personal com- ing and exchanging essential information. puter (PC) made its appearance on the mar- Public and secure Web sites are maintained to ket and a true revolution in the exchange provide the information necessary to man- and use of information began. age and direct military operations. The U.S. The introduction of the Intel 4004 chip Department of Defense has developed a num- microprocessor in November 1971 began the ber of security measures to deal with net- computer revolution. The new chip placed works. The Secure Internet Protocol Router all of the parts that made a computer work Network is an interoperable command-and on one small chip. The Intel chip, and simi- control-network designed to handle classi- lar chips from other manufacturers, was fied applications and information. The nonse- soon being used to manufacture low-cost cure Internet Protocol Router Network computers for office and home. It was nat- handles sensitive information and provides ural that owners of the desktop machines controlled access to the Internet. In addition to would want to connect to networks and the two networks, the FORTEZZA card, exchange information with other users. As which plugs into a computer’s PCMCIA the number of users of PCs increased and the (card) reader, contains the capstone crypto- capacity and speed of the microprocessors graphic engines and the user’s private key to improved dramatically, the number con- encrypt and decrypt messages to provide nected to mainframes and networked within information security. organizations increased rapidly. Once the The PC as a desktop unit became an essen- TCP/IP protocol was included in the soft- tial piece of office equipment in the 1980s, ware loaded on the new machines, their use and the laptop followed in the 1990s. The to access the growing number of networks ability to utilize commercial communica- was assured. tions technology combined with computer In 1990, Tim (later Sir Tim) Berners-Lee, security measures has brought personal working at the European Particle Physics computers, laptops, wireless networks, per- Laboratory (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, sonal communications systems, personal developed three essential parts of the mod- digital assistants, satellite telephones, and ern Internet: HyperText Markup Language, transmission of streaming video to the bat- Uniform Resource Locator, and HyperText tlefield. The Internet has revolutionized the Transfer Protocol. The World Wide Web way information is exchanged for both mil- (WWW) was the combination of these devel- itary and civilian users. opments at CERN, which were adopted and Tommy R. Young II applied to their needs by other users. In 1992, the University of Illinois developed its Web See also Computer; Computer Security browser “Mosaic.” Several years later a com- (COMPUSEC); DARPANET; Defense mercial version, Netscape, was released. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Internet, as it exists today, is actually a net- (DARPA); Defense Switched Network work of computer networks and the WWW (DSN); E-Mail Systems; Global Information Grid (GIG); Information is a web of information webs. Revolution in Military Affairs (IRMA); In the last twenty years, military organiza- Solid State Electronics; Voice over Internet tions around the world have adopted the Protocol (VoIP)

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Sources digitized, netlike, multilevel, multiservice, Griffiths, Richard T. 2002. “History of the and dependent on commercial IT inno- Internet, Internet for Historians (and just vations. about everyone else).” [Online article; retrieved December 2006.] http://www .let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/frame_theorie Changing Technology .html. Communication is now important not merely Kleinrock, Leonard. 2005. “Internet History” for transmitting orders but for learning the [Online information; retrieved December location of friendly and enemy forces, the 2006.] http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/internet changing battlespace map, coordinating joint _history.html. Leiner, Barry M., et al. 2006. “A Brief History of (multiservice) operations, sustaining inter- the Internet.” [Online article; retrieved April operability—and for successful use of new 2007.] http://www.isoc.org/internet/ high-tech weapons systems (mainly satellite history/brief.shtml. or laser precision-guided munitions [PGMs] Williams, Michael. 1997. A History of Computing and unmanned vehicles). While PGMs Technology. 2nd ed. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press. amounted to less than 10 percent of explo- Zakon, Robert H. 2006. “Hobbes’ Internet sives used during the 1991 Gulf War, by the Timeline.” [Online information; retrieved Iraq War they accounted for 68 percent. December 2006.] http://www.zakon.org/ Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial robert/internet/timeline/. vehicles, commonly used for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, provided real- time pictures of remote targets to be Iraq War (2003–Present) destroyed by PGMs. Intelligence analysts working back in the United States reported If the 1990–1991 Gulf War is often called the to the Combined Air Operations Center in first Information Age war, then the Iraq Saudi Arabia and to theater commanders in War was the first one overwhelmingly Iraq. This precise and instantaneous com- dominated by computerized and digital munication over great distances was crucial communications. During the twelve-year for smart bomb efficiency. Improvement in interlude between these two wars, the global positioning system (GPS) theater American military developed powerful infra - accuracy by more than 20 percent since the structure for conducting quick wars. Infor- 1990s increased the effectiveness of thou- mation technology (IT) was the cornerstone sands of GPS-guided munitions used during of military communication during Operation this war. Pilots could wait for last-minute Iraqi Freedom. Not only did it help to reduce orders to program a bomb or missile before the Clausewitzian “fog” and “friction” of war releasing it. Thanks to GPS, the United States but it also marked the twenty-first century could begin the war with a dramatic air cam- transformation of the U.S. military toward paign dubbed “Shock and Awe.” Full-time “network-centric warfare.” Based on the Iraq GPS coverage was also extensively utilized War experience, modern military communi- for location purposes—the Army was sup- cation appears to be more about communica- plied with more than 100,000 precision light- tion among machines (computers, systems, weight GPS receivers. and networks) than among humans. Com- Digital communication networks gave munication has become real time, automatic, coalition forces unprecedented air-land-

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naval operations coordination and near- ties and collecting 42,000 battlefield images, perfect battlespace awareness. This in turn 3,200 hours of streaming video, and 2,400 speeded reaction time. Global and tactical hours of signals intelligence coverage. This communications systems allowed comman- massive amount of raw data was passed ders to identify targets and send orders to through satellite communication networks fire on them within minutes. Never before and then, after being analyzed, disseminated has the time lag between a target’s identifi- as processed information across services, cation and its destruction (“sensor-to-shooter command posts, and maneuvering units. gap”) been shorter. One example is an For the U.S. Navy, communication at sea attempt to take out a probable Saddam Hus- was aided by chat rooms and secure tele- sein shelter on 7 April 2003—the time be- phones. To enhance speed and effectiveness tween target identification and elimination of command and control (C2), Navy officials was less than fifteen minutes. Rapid and used more than 500 chat rooms on Penta- massive strikes required streamlined trans- gon’s SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol mission of battle damage assessments as Router Network). Being functionally a coun- commanders had to make quick decisions of terpart of the civilian World Wide Web, it likely re-strikes on undamaged targets. Here became a vital communication channel for communications systems along with intelli- all services. SIPRNet and IP connectivity gence evaluation proved supreme when allowed the coalition to rapidly win the ini- compared with the earlier Gulf War. tial combat phase in Iraq. Space-based assets were crucial in Iraq. The Iraq coalition was an Information Age According to some estimates, 60 percent of force. The key unit responsible for providing all communications at the height of the war communications was the V Corps’ 22nd Sig- were transmitted by satellite. During the nal Brigade. The Army Battle Command opening fighting, almost a hundred different System (ABCS) enabled commanders to satellites were used for military communica- transmit orders, intelligence, logistics infor- tion compared to about sixty during the Gulf mation, and other useful data. A new com- War. Consequently, fifteen times more satel- ponent of ABCS was the Blue Force Tracking lite bandwidth was available than in (BFT) system for identifying friendly (U.S. or 1990–1991. In 1991 American forces num- coalition) forces. According to Northrop bered 542,000 and could use 99 mbs of band- Grumman, BFT’s developer, it is a rugged width, while 2003 coalition forces totaled system of software and hardware that links 350,000 but bandwidth grew to 783 mbs. satellites, sensors, communications devices, Some 33,500 people at twenty-one Ameri- vehicles, aircraft, and weapons in a seamless can and fifteen foreign sites were involved in digital network. It provided a real-time space support activities for the Iraq War. “common operational” picture of the battle- Joint command (at the Central Command field (“battlefield awareness”) for comman- level) was conducted via the Global Com- ders and units. It also supported joint mand and Control System (GCCS), which operational commands by providing current provided “a God’s-eye view” of the battle- location of army forces through GCCS. BFT’s field as never before. Eighty aircraft carried computer terminals showed blue icons out ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and recon- (friendly forces) on digitized maps and pro- naissance) missions, flying a thousand sor- vided the latest satellite navigation imagery

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with regular information updates. Red icons, units and to disrupt their communication representing enemy units, could be added to and radar systems. The Iraqis had at least the system, although not automatically four systems to jam coalition GPS, but all updated. BFT was installed on more than were damaged in early fighting. Destruction 1,200 ground and aviation platforms in Iraq. of fiber optic and other networks between BFT proved its value as a means for enhanced southern Iraq and Baghdad cut off enemy joint operation among U.S. services and forces in the south. In the period following British forces. It significantly reduced inci- the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, rising dents of friendly fire (“blue on blue”), as insurgency forces relied on nonradio modes BFT’s “common operational picture” allowed of communication (largely signal flares, light everyone to see all fighting units. signals, smoke, and couriers). They later Use of “closed loop” operations offered worked out a communication system based coalition forces a great advantage as feedback on portable radios and cell phones. between commander and field units allowed After the initial (spring 2003) fighting, information to flow both ways. Soldiers in the novel means of sharing experience with and field received command, control, communica- knowledge about fighting insurgencies were tion, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and created. In April 2004 CavNet was inaugu- reconnaissance (C4ISR) information, which rated at Camp Victory in Iraq as a site (mili- provided them with current situation aware- tary forum) at SIPRNet. It is a user-driven ness, while the commander, seeing results of system for transferring knowledge about the operations, could direct further military foe, emerging enemy and friendly tactics, actions. techniques, and procedures in various mis- The TeleEngineering Kit (TEK) constituted sion categories. CavNet was fashioned to a fairly new pattern of military communica- provide commanders the collective best tion. Units in the field could contact experts practice to “prepare for the next patrol.” at the TeleEngineering Operations Center in Another new dimension of communica- Vicksburg, Mississippi, to advise solutions to tion during the war, which also undertook complex technical problems, such as repairs Information Age–like changes, was the pat- to damaged bridges, by transmitting in - tern of soldiers’ communication with home. formation and images. TEK used mobile When in 1948 the Military Affiliate Radio communication systems of small satellite ter- System was established, as a side-effect it minal, laptop, camcorder, and videoconfer- enabled soldiers (though on a very limited encing units. Technical advice was usually scale) to call home free of charge. In the Gulf provided within four hours. TEK is a good War, e-mail first emerged as a means for example of sharing information and knowl- deployed soldiers to communicate with fam- edge during combat. ilies at home. During the Iraq War, with the At the beginning of the Iraq War, the coali- establishment of forward operating bases tion managed to destroy most of its priority where soldiers could rest from the battle- Iraq communication infrastructure targets. field stress, Internet kiosks were established As a result, Iraqi commanders did not have by Iraqi businessmen. Relying on fiber optic an overall picture of the coalition maneuvers infrastructure, however, they did not sur- and at times they sent orders to units that had vive the war. By mid-2003 a contractor pro- ceased to exist. The coalition’s aim was to vided satellite broadband Internet access jam Iraqi reconnaissance and air defense across the Iraq theater. Voice over Internet

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Protocol allowed instant messaging from 180 not within the covered area, field units could Internet kiosks set up throughout Iraq. Vir- not receive updated imagery. Units below tually all soldiers used e-mail and instant the brigade level often lacked even MSE messaging to stay connected with home. communication. Thus, the Iraq War revealed some shortfalls of the digitized twenty-first Lessons century army. One senior official captured Although the war demonstrated how un- this digital divide noting that he could precedented information sharing proved the acquire “oven-fresh imagery” but not for- power of network-centric warfare, there are ward it to the units advancing on Baghdad. lessons to be learned from this conflict. Sev- The war demonstrated that the greatest IT eral serious challenges for digitization and challenge is to supply an army with systems modernization of the American military capable of on-the-move communications became apparent. While “jointness” acquired backed up with high-bandwidth satellites. with new high-speed communication tech- Iraq fighting revealed the need for solutions niques heavily strengthened coalition forces, to eliminate this divide, including the there is poor interoperability among service- Warfighter Information Network–Tactical specific C4ISR capabilities. For example, and the Joint Tactical Radio System. through unmanned vehicles the U.S. The Iraq War marked a new phase in the Marines generated data that V Corps badly evolution of military communications. It needed but could not access for the lack of proved the power of information and novel means to connect to the data flow. Interoper- ways of its transmission for achieving deci- ability was an even greater challenge for sive and rapid victory in warfare. coalition members less advanced in IT tech- ?ukasz Kamie?ski nologies. Mobile and wireless C2 must be See also Defense Advanced Research Projects increased, especially for the Army. Data Agency (DARPA); Global Command and should be quickly turned into knowledge to Control System (GCCS); Global Positioning remove information overload, which ap - System (GPS); Gulf War (1990–1991); pears to be the twenty-first century version Information Revolution in Military Affairs of Clausewitz’s fog of war, generating (IRMA); Jamming; Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); Military Affiliate Radio chance and unpredictability. System (MARS); Voice over Internet Protocol The Army lagged the Air Force and Navy (VoIP); Warfighter Information Network– in use of satellite communications. Although Tactical (WIN-T) tactical satellite radios for voice communica- tions were used extensively by commanders Sources to communicate, most ABCS information was Bradley, Carl M. 2004. “Intelligence, Surveil- lance and Reconnaissance in Support of passed over mobile subscriber equipment Operation Iraqi Freedom: Challenges for Rapid (MSE)—an aging line-of-sight voice and data Manoeuvres and Joint C4ISR Integration and communication system. Its basic shortcom- Interoperability.” Newport, RI: Naval War ing was the dependence on ground-based College. nodes. When a subscriber passed outside Cordesman, Anthony H. 2003. The Lessons of the Iraq War: Main Report, Washington, DC: network coverage, there were no contigu- Center for Strategic and International ous nodes to carry the signal, so he or she Studies. had to turn to FM or military/commercial Flynn, Erin. 2006. “Jumping Ahead to WIN-T.” satellite radios and phones. If the nodes were Military Information Technology 10 (2).

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Available online at http://www.military this underground organization. An under- -information-technology.com/article ground radio network helped to connect .cfm?DocID=1351. Haganah interests in Baghdad, Damascus, Fontenot, Gregory, et al. 2005. “On Point” The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Beirut, and several European and other Freedom, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute cities. In May 1948 the Signal Corps was Press. formed from this service, and Jacob Yanovski Frontline. 2005. “Innovating & Improvising.” soon professionalized it. The objectives were [Online article; retrieved December 2006.] to provide communications for the ground http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ portion of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) frontline/shows/company/lessons. GlobalSecurity.org. “Warfighter Information and the postal service for ground, sea, and Network–Tactical (WIN-T).” [Online air services. By 1949 the Signal Corps had information; retrieved December 2006.] grown to 3,500 troops. There were approxi- http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ mately fifteen brigade companies, twenty systems/ground/win-t.htm. battalion platoons, twenty radio stations Krepinevich, Andrew F. 2003. “Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Brush Assessment.” abroad, ninety static radio stations, a signal Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and school, and three major electronic equipment Budgetary Assessments. laboratories. The corps continued to expand Moseley, Michael T. 2003. “Operation Iraqi and worked in close contact with the Israeli Freedom—By the Numbers.” United States electronics industry. Central Command Air Force, Shaw Air IDF has long used technology to make up Force Base, SC: Combined Forces Air Component, Assessment and Analysis for what it lacks in size and human re - Division (April). sources. Israel has no separate army, navy, or Wong, Leonard, and Stephen Gerras. 2006. CU air force. Instead IDF is divided into forces, @ The FOB: How the Forward Operating Base Is two of which are the air force (Heyl Ha’avir) Changing the Life of Combat Soldiers. Carlisle, and navy (Heyl Ha’yam, literally, “sea force”). PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. Given its strategic location and situation, IDF requires and has created effective com- munications to summon and coordinate ground or air forces as needed. Its procure- Israel ment needs, in turn, feed further technical development. Much of IDF’s electronic sys- Founded on 14 May 1948, Israel by the early tems (intelligence, communication, com- twenty-first century had put into place the mand and control, navigation, etc.) are Israeli most highly developed (though not the developed. largest) telecommunications system in IDF’s command, control, communication, the Middle East. It is based on a good system and computers directorate is digitizing the of coaxial cable and microwave radio relay military. This effort includes the integration and all systems are digital. Israel also has a of all ground force assets through fiber optic very proficient high-technology industry. cables, cellular and broadband communica- A signal service was initially developed by tions, and the expansion of military satellite the Haganah in the 1930s. By 1937 use of all communications. Israel’s Ground Forces means of communication from lamps to heli- Command has launched a project called Dig- ographs to flags to radio were to be found in ital Ground Warfare (Tsayad), which is meant

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to integrate all units of the army and allow high-level security, assured coverage and the General Staff to obtain a real-time picture capacity based on operational planning (not of any battlefield. only by actual demand), and the ability to Many American firms have worked “kill” a unit that is interfering, lost, or cap- closely with Israel’s military. ITT Industries, tured by the enemy. Fixed and transportable for example, supplies Israel with communi- sites deploy with the military units, posi- cations, electronic, and night-vision equip- tioned at vantage points where they provide ment. More recently, Motorola established a optimal coverage and redundancy to main- terrestrial nationwide military cellular net- tain effective connectivity and communica- work for IDF providing dependable and tions capacity for the operating forces. deployable voice and data services to mili- Because the system is not dependent on tary commanders. Code-named Mountain Israel’s commercial infrastructure, commu- Rose (Vered Harim), the system became oper- nications can be sustained even under critical ational in mid-2004, after almost four years loads and in emergencies, where other forms of development and installation. It revolu- of communications fail. When communica- tionized IDF communications networks, tion links are not available for any reason, transforming them from a hierarchical net- each handset is configured to communicate working model to a spatial connectivity directly with nearby handsets, maintaining a infrastructure. The system replaced outdated minimum level of local communications. means of communications, including ter- Israel has used its capability to launch restrial communications, wireless radio- reconnaissance satellites into orbit (a capabil- telephone links, and some combat radio ity shared with but a handful of nations). networks. For the first time Israeli comman- Both the satellites (Ofeq) and the launchers ders can utilize highly secure communica- (Shavit) were developed by Israeli security tions while on the move. The system also industries. supports data transfer. Currently transfer of Christopher H. Sterling and Cliff Lord images and messages is facilitated with See also Egypt; Intelligence Ships; Mobile planned enhancements including video ser- Communications; Suez Crisis (1956) vices. These mobile networks can link to ter- restrial networks or satellite communications Sources systems to facilitate direct and seamless con- Bednarz, Ann. 2005. “There’s Battle Tested . . . nectivity from the lowest echelon up to the and Then There’s the Israeli Military: The national command level. Silicon Valley of the Middle East.” Network World, May 23. This military network is maintained by the Israel Defense Forces. Home page. [Online operator and therefore enables services that information; retrieved April 2006.] http:// had previously been maintained only by com- www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/homepage.asp mercial providers. These include end-to-end ?clr=1&sl=EN&id=—8888&force=1.

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Jackson, Henry B. (1855–1929) to the other. At the same time, although they were unaware of the other’s efforts, Gugli- A British Royal Navy officer who rose to elmo Marconi had been working along paral- command the service as First Sea Lord, lel lines. While Marconi was developing Henry Jackson was a pioneer in experiment- long-distance wireless communication over ing with wireless telegraphy for two years in both land and sea, Jackson’s main aim was to the late 1890s. improve communication service for the fleet. Jackson was born 21 December 1855 in The navy did not seek a patent on Jackson’s Barnsley, England. As was not uncommon in developments, suggesting they did not see those days, in late 1868, at the age of thirteen the potential of wireless. Jackson soon he joined the Royal Navy as a cadet. He rose achieved intership and ship-to-land transmis- through the ranks and saw service in Africa, sion distances of up to three miles. Seeing this on the torpedo school ship HMS Vernon at achievement as well as Marconi’s continued Portsmouth, and in 1896 was promoted to efforts, the navy changed its approach and captain of the HMS Defiance, a former sailing provided more funds for experimentation. But ship serving as the navy’s torpedo school. by late 1897, Jackson had become naval Jackson had always been interested in sci- attaché at the embassy in Paris. His work from ence as it might best serve the navy. He had 1895 to 1897 had been central to studied navigation and then the mechanism the Royal Navy’s pioneering wireless role. of the torpedo. Jackson finally succeeded in persuading the Jackson conceived of the idea of employing Admiralty to experiment with Marconi’s wire- wireless waves to signal from one ship to less telegraphy devices. Four vessels were another, specifically to inform a capital ship of equipped in 1899, and Jackson commanded the approach of a friendly torpedo boat. He one of them, achieving signals at a distance of experimented with equipment designed for 60 to 70 miles. More operational equipment both sending and receiving messages. While was ordered and installed the next year. master of the Defiance, he succeeded in 1896 in Jackson was elected as a fellow of the transmitting signals from one end of the ship Royal Society in 1901 in recognition of his

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wireless work. He became assistant director Kent, Barrie. 1993. “Wireless in the Fleet.” In of Torpedoes at the Admiralty in 1902, and Signal! A History of Signalling in the Royal three years later was appointed Third Sea Navy. Clanfield, UK: Hyden House. Pocock, R. F., and G. R. M. Garratt. 1972. The Lord and controller. In 1908 he returned to Origins of Maritime Radio: The Story of the the sea as commanding officer of a cruiser Introduction of Wireless Telegraphy in the Royal squadron in the Mediterranean. In 1911 Jack- Navy Between 1896 and 1900. London: Science son became the first director of the newly Museum/HMSO. created Royal Navy War College at Ports- Rawles, Alan. 1955. “Jackson of the Defiance.” Journal of the Institute of Electrical Engineers mouth. Two years later, on the eve of World (December). War I, he was appointed chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty. When Admiral Lord John Fisher resigned as First Sea Lord over Jamming government policy in the Dardanelles, Jack- son succeeded him in the uniformed ser- Jamming means to transmit one radio signal vice’s highest attainable post in May 1915. in order to block effective reception of Eighteen months later he became president another. The jamming signal is most often of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. transmitted to disrupt enemy communica- He was advanced to the ultimate rank of tion receivers (not transmitters) but may also Admiral of the Fleet in 1919. be intended to throw off radio- or satellite- Jackson continued his interest in wireless directed weapons, navigation systems (in - and in 1920 was appointed first chairman of cluding global positioning system [GPS]), or the navy’s Radio Research Board of the radar. A jamming transmitter must operate Department of Scientific and Industrial on the same frequency and with the same Research. Under his guidance, important type of modulation as the signal it seeks to experiments were carried out on propagation jam, and it must use at least enough power of wireless waves, the nature of atmospherics, (often much more than the original signal) to radio direction finding, and precise radio fre- accomplish its job. quency measurements. Jackson received The first experiments with intentional many awards including, in 1926, the Royal radio jamming date to British naval exer- Society’s Hughes Medal. Admiral Jackson cises in the Mediterranean in 1902, less than retired in mid-1924 and died on 14 December five years after the first shipboard wireless 1929 at his home on Hayling Island. installations. Some jamming efforts took Christopher H. Sterling place during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Radio jamming was fairly com- See also Defiance HMS; Marconi, Guglielmo mon during World War I though naval jam- (1874–1937); Radio; United Kingdom: Royal Navy ming often ran up against the greater need to tune in enemy transmissions for intelligence Sources clues. Ground-to-air communication links Jackson, H. B. 1902. “On Some Phenomena affecting the Transmission of Electric were also regularly jammed. Waves over the Surface of Sea and Earth.” One crude but effective means of jamming Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 70: radar signals during World War II was the 254–272. dropping of thousands of aluminum tinsel

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shreds (chaff or “window”) from fighter or trated power against a specific channel or bomber aircraft. A later effort at selective jam- frequency. When tuned, a jammed signal ming of radio signals took place in the most often sounds like random noise, December 1944 Battle of the Bulge. Ameri- stepped tones (used against voice circuits, can B-24 bombers flew over the battle area these often sound like bagpipes), gull-like carrying the high-powered radio jamming sounds (also effective against voice signals), transmitter dubbed “Jackal” for the first time. a random pulse tone (useful against tele- Radio signals transmitted on AM frequencies typewriter and data systems), recorded successfully jammed German radio commu- sounds (such as music, screams, applause nications while not interfering with overlap- or laughter, machinery, or whistles), or what ping FM signals from American transmitters. is termed preamble jamming (useful against By the end of the war, most participants had speech security devices). But jamming trans- developed extensive radio equipment for missions can also be subtle (unmodulated) jamming both communication links and and obvious in their squelching action only radar systems. Airborne communications when the desired signal cannot be tuned. jamming equipment was further developed Among methods of overcoming jamming in the postwar years. (they vary with the equipment used and sig- The type of jamming probably best known nals sought) is increasing transmitter out- to the public was the long-running Soviet put to overpower the jammer, modifying or political effort to jam incoming high- relocating antennas, changing frequency, or frequency shortwave broadcasts (specifically acquiring another satellite (to overcome jam- those of Britain, West Germany, Israel, and the ming of an existing one). Defense Advanced United States). By 1956 an estimated 3,000 Research Projects Agency–funded research jamming transmitters were putting up a wall announced in 2001 is developing a software- of noise, some jamming ground waves, others based radio that can use an antenna to “sniff sky wave transmissions. With a few respites, the frequency” and then convert transmis- jamming continued in Europe for thirty-five sions to another available frequency for years until the beginning of 1988. One West- voice or data communications. Operational ern response was “barrage” transmissions equipment was said to be five years away. using many transmitters on different frequen- During the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, cies at the same time in the hope that some American forces destroyed Russian-supplied would get through (the technique parallels equipment intended to disrupt reception of one used by the military). The cost of bar- GPS signals vital for navigation. Fittingly, the rage jamming was high—often 100 times that devices were destroyed with a GPS-guided of the signal to be jammed. Such jamming weapon, but they underscored growing con- efforts are theoretically illegal in international cerns about the jamming of satellite- communications as they often involve unli- deployed weaponry (especially as the same censed transmitters that may interfere with Russian firm had contracts from the Ameri- services other than their targets. can military). In October 2004, the U.S. Air There are many types of purposeful signal Force announced that its new Counter Com- jamming in addition to barrage jamming. munication System that could jam enemy Spot jamming, for example, directs concen- satellite transmissions was operational. The

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ground-based jammer (three of which had industrial capacity (never more than 10 per- been delivered to the Air Force Space Com- cent that of the United States). Japan had mand) uses electromagnetic radio frequency counted on winning a short war, and lost a energy to knock out transmissions on a tem- longer one. porary basis, without disabling satellite com- The first Japanese military flying took place ponents permanently. in 1910, and the country’s first aircraft factory, Christopher H. Sterling Nakajima, was founded in 1916. The follow- See also Communication Satellites; Defense ing year Mitsubishi and Kawasaki followed Advanced Research Projects Agency suit. But other than some action in China (DARPA); Electronic Countermeasures/ against weak German colonies, Japan’s air Electronic Warfare (ECM/EW); Global units saw little air action during World War I. Positioning System (GPS); Iraq War Japan did not have an independent air (2003–Present); Joint Tactical Information force during World War II, but rather the Distribution System (JTIDS); Propaganda and Psychological Warfare; Radio; Spread Imperial Japanese Army Air Force was part Spectrum of the army while the navy maintained its own air capability (similar to American prac- Sources tice at the time). Each service began the war Department of the Army. 1990. “Remedial with about 1,500 fighters and bombers, Electronic Counter-Countermeasures though the naval air arm was the more Techniques.” In Communications Techniques: Electronic Counter-Countermeasures, chap. 3, important, larger, and better equipped. FM 24–33. Banking on a short war, Japan cut back on Lacrois, R. 1998. “Tactical Radio Jammers.” training new pilots. The Battle of Midway [Online information; retrieved November (1942) cost Japan’s navy four carriers and 2004.] http://www.milspec.ca/jammers/ hundreds of pilots and aircraft, a loss from jammers.html. Poisel, Richard A. 2003. Modern Communications which the naval air arm never fully recov- Jamming Principles and Techniques. Norwood, ered. The Japanese stressed radio silence in MA: Artech House. its aircraft and thus there was little voice Price, Alfred. 1984. The History of U.S. Electronic traffic, and what did take place was typi- Warfare: The Years of Innovation—Beginnings cally on one channel (unlike the multichan- to 1946. Alexandria, VA: Society of Old nel U.S. aircraft radios), which was easy for Crows. Wood, James. 1992. “Jamming on the Short a busy pilot to use. Japanese aircraft often Waves.” In History of International Broadcast- relied more on radio telegraphy (code) than ing. London: Peter Peregrinus, 162–167. on voice, because it had greater range. The risk with the single channel was that it could be and was easily jammed. Radio tubes were Japan: Air Force generally of American design, manufactured under license before the war began. Japan’s air power began to develop early in Sadly for the Japanese war effort, neither the twentieth century, and the country was the army nor the naval air units appear to making its own airplanes by World War I. have cooperated with the other on any level. While Japanese army and navy air units Two examples make this clear. The army dominated Pacific skies early in World War used a numerical code for its aircraft com- II, they failed to maintain their technical munications while naval aviation used leadership because of the country’s limited Japanese characters—this was never stan-

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dardized and harmed joint operations. And usually left off the one-way flights as unnec- the two services used different electrical sys- essary weight. tems so that attempts at identification, friend For a decade after its surrender, Japan had or foe procedures often failed. The lack of no active air force of any kind. Growing out standardization extended to radios. Radio of rising Cold War tensions, however, Japan equipment for the air forces of the army and began to develop its postwar air force in navy alike was compact and generally well 1952, and the Japanese Air Self Defense Force made (especially after 1943), though ease of was created on 1 July 1954. A year later the serviceability was often lacking. Radios were Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force small, simple, and light. Transmitters and received its first naval aircraft. Both made receivers were often designed for use in spe- extensive use of American aircraft, radio, cific aircraft rather than along standardized and avionics equipment. lines. Yet sometimes it appeared as though Christopher H. Sterling radio design did not take into account See also Airplanes; Identification, Friend or Foe the type of aircraft being used. Aircraft- (IFF); Japan: Army; Japan: Navy (Nippon manufacturer electrical engineers knew little Teikoku Kaigun); Midway, Battle of (3–6 June about radio, which did not help matters. 1942); World War II Operationally, aircraft radio left something Sources to be desired, however. Japanese naval air- Howard, William L. “Collection of Japanese craft, for example, suffered from high noise W.W.II Military Radios.” [Online informa- levels, making receiving difficult or impossi- tion; retrieved April 2006.] http://www ble. Operation of the receivers was difficult .armyradio.com/arsc/customer/pages.php because of how the apparatus was placed, ?pageurl=/publish/Articles/William and adjustments were difficult. Consider- _Howard_Japan/Collection_Of_Japanese _Radios.htm. able use was made of earlier American and Lange, Steve. 1996. “The Imperial Japanese other designs, though there was little sign of Navy Air Force in the Pacific War.” [Online quantity production. Some smaller aircraft article; retrieved June 2006.] http://www lacked any radio equipment, and most .combinedfleet.com/ijnaf.htm. Japanese fighters lacked radar even toward Mikesh, Robert C. 2004. “Radio Equipment.” In the end of the war. Japan’s industrial capac- Japanese Aircraft Equipment 1940–1945, 72–99. Atglen, PA: Schiffer. ity, reeling under increasing American War Department. 1944. “‘Airborne’ Signal bombing, was unable to produce improved Equipment.” In Handbook on Japanese Military aircraft or radio designs after about 1943, let Forces, Technical Manual TM-E 30-480 alone adequately maintain those it had, fur- (September), 312–322. Washington, DC: ther hampering air action. Government Printing Office. Out of desperation as the Pacific war turned against it, Japan turned to harsh tac- tics that relied on blind loyalty rather than its Japan: Army declining technology. The first kamikaze (suicide) attack on American warships took Japan has a longer history of organized fight- place in the late 1944 battle for the Philip- ing forces than most countries. After a long pines. Suicide pilots had to fly at low alti- feudal period that ended in the late nine- tudes to avoid U.S. radar and were thus teenth century, the country’s military was vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. Radios were rapidly modernized. After 1900, Japan made

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effective use of radio and developed sophis- Communications were necessary between ticated ciphers to protect its military commu- battles as well. As occurred in other coun- nications. tries, one leader set up a system of fire bea- For centuries feudal warriors on Japanese cons across his province so as to receive battlefields were identified with symbols, notification as soon as his rival made a move. crests, banners, or markings on armor to But records suggest the system could be used identify on which side a warrior fought. By but once: Wooden towers were filled with the mid-sixteenth century, flags and banners flammable material, and as each was lit, the came in a wide variety of styles, sizes, next, some distance away, would see the sig- shapes, and colors. Where once only higher- nal and light its own. The message was sent ranking samurai and commanders had stan- but the system disappeared (though it could dards (flags), lower-ranking warriors also be rebuilt). Couriers were also widely used— wore flags to communicate their unit or divi- with a useful twist for self-preservation of sion, along with their clan or lord. Armies courier and message. A written message were growing larger and the number of clans might end with “the messenger will provide present had increased as well. This profusion further details.” By not putting the entire of banners meant that commanders had to message into writing, the messenger enjoyed have especially large and noticeable stan- an element of protection from those who dards to identify their location; warriors might otherwise kill him to steal the signal. needed to know where to rally around, The late nineteenth-century arrival of whose orders to follow—and what those huge industrial and political changes in orders were. The role of standard bearer was Japan dramatically altered military commu- one of the most dangerous (and thus one of nications as well. French and German advis- the most honorable) positions on a battle- ers after 1870 helped to create Asia’s most field. While all this helped morale, it could modern army. The Imperial Japanese Army also identify key figures for potential enemy (formed in 1873) was directed by a general attack. headquarters with a number of professional Japanese armies made extensive use of bureaus (the third of which included drums, horns, gongs, and bells to announce communications responsibilities). A quasi- the call to battle, to set marching pace, and military signal unit was deployed in 1877, for a number of other basic commands. during the Seinan Rebellion; the first fully Conch shells were used as trumpets or military signals unit was organized two horns, and a complex system of calls came years later, and in 1880 the army appointed into use. Many shell blowers (yamabushi) a signal engineer. The signal unit was abol- were renowned for their skill and were hired ished in 1887 when signal training com- into feudal armies as trumpeters. On the menced in the engineers corps. During the other hand, gongs and bells were rarely Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), seven field brought onto the battlefield. Rather, they signal units, three signal zone units, and one would be used at camp to rouse forces to bat- special signal unit were mobilized. A signal tle or to signal warnings of approaching ene- training unit opened in 1902. In the Russo- mies. For example, one bell could mean to Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan demon- stop eating, the second to put on armor, and strated it could apply Western technology, the third to move out toward the battlefield. discipline, strategy, and tactics to beat a

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European power. Twenty signal companies, man) except those intended for headquarters seven zone signal companies, and two spe- use. Most could be operated with batteries cial signal companies were mobilized. More and were well made. In addition to wired than 140,000 miles of line were laid, with and wireless electronic means, Japanese 883 telegraph terminals and twenty-nine forces also used pigeons, dogs, horns and telephone exchanges. A signal battalion was whistles, and pyrotechnic signals for battle- created in 1907. A study committee for wire- field operations. less communications was established in 1910 Japan did not have much success with and a signal battalion was reorganized with wartime signals intelligence. While army eight telegraph companies. cryptographers broke into some low-grade In World War I, Japan played a limited Chinese and American (U.S. Army Air Force) role in hostilities, but did take over former codes, they did not succeed in breaking any German colonies in China and the Pacific, high-grade ciphers of any of the Allies. They thus stretching its communication links. For did, however, carefully monitor Allied radio example, the Japanese Siberia Expedition of traffic in the various Pacific theaters of war 1918 included two field signal companies, a (learning the frequencies and call signs of B- zone signal company, and two wireless 29 bombers, for example), and from that traf- companies. A signal school opened in 1924. fic analysis they were able to make some During the Manchurian Incident of 1931, inferences as to Allied unit locations and three signal battalions were involved. More plans, and though less often, aims and tim- signal units were created during the Sino- ing of specific raids. Playing on this, the Japanese hostilities of 1937. During 1939, a Allied forces would send false, deceptive fourth signal regiment was raised. The corps transmissions, of which the Japanese often separated from the engineers in 1941, becom- fell afoul. On the other hand, Allied code ing an independent organization. Many breakers had considerable success breaking additional signal units were formed during into many Japanese army codes. World War II. On the Manchurian front at the very end From 1941 to 1945, Japanese forces oper- of the war (August 1945), the Soviet attack ated across a huge area of Asia and the found the Japanese suffering poor communi- Pacific, making the need for effective com- cations throughout its Kwangtung Army. munications paramount. Where possible in Army headquarters possessed no means of local battle areas, Japanese military units military communication. Heavy reliance on relied on wired communication (telephone, public telephone lines proved to be detri- telegraph), using radio as a secondary mode mental when the phone lines were disrupted of transmission for short-term or over long- at the beginning of the Soviet invasion. As a distance and water links. This lowered the result, the Japanese headquarters had little danger of being overheard by the enemy. command and control available over its Equipment designs during the war (usually Kwangtung Army, which collapsed under numbered in accordance with the Japanese heavy Soviet pressure. year) rarely changed and usually reflected For nearly a decade after World War II, technology of the late 1930s. Radio transmit- Japan fielded only domestic police forces. The ters, virtually all amplitude modulated, were Japan Ground Self Defense Forces were cre- often small (many could be carried by one ated shortly after the end of U.S. occupation

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 254 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Japan: Navy in mid-1954. They are now among the most Japan: Navy (Nippon Teikoku technologically advanced armed forces, and Kaigun) Japan’s military expenditures are the sev- enth highest in the world. Japan’s booming As an island nation, Japan’s navy and mer- electronics industry has no trouble providing chant marine trade dominated much of the whatever communications equipment is country’s military thinking and technology needed. According to the terms of the Treaty for the first half of the twentieth century. of Mutual Cooperation and Security signed Generally Japan’s naval communications in 1960, Japan relies on the United States for were among the worlds’ best, save for the defense and hosts a number of American final months of World War II. military bases. The Imperial Japanese Navy was created Christopher H. Sterling and Cliff Lord in 1869 as part of the nation’s modernization, See also Code Breaking; Deception; Flags; though it remained largely a coastal defense Magic; Medieval Military Signaling force for the next two decades. The 1905 Bat- (500–1500 CE); Music Signals; Signals Intelli- tle of Tsushima demonstrated to the world gence (SIGINT); World War II Japanese growth and prowess when it de - molished a Russian squadron—winning the Sources battle in part by a far more effective use of its Bennett, J. W., et al. 1986. Intelligence and Cryptanalytic Activities of the Japanese During use of wireless communications. Japan relied World War II. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park on British and then French ship designs and Press (reprint of 1945 classified original naval advice but steadily turned to Japanese report). yards and equipment manufacturers by the Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. 1991. start of World War I. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Army. New York: Random During World War I, Japan focused on the House. Pacific, first against German colonies and Howard, William L. “Collection of Japanese naval units, and then against Germany’s com- W.W.II Military Radios.” [Online informa- merce raiders through 1917. Japanese naval tion; retrieved April 2006.] http://www units helped escort Allied convoys to the Mid- .armyradio.com/arsc/customer/pages.php dle East. All of this widespread activity gave ?pageurl=/publish/Articles/William _Howard_Japan/Collection_Of_Japanese naval signals personnel considerable experi- _Radios.htm. ence. In the 1920s, already ranked as the third War Department. 1944. Japanese Radio Communi- largest fleet in the world, the navy began to cations Equipment, Technical Manual TM-E focus on building a powerful fleet to fight the 11-227A (December). Washington, DC: United States for supremacy in the Pacific. At Government Printing Office. War Department. 1944. “Signal Equipment.” the same time the country’s electronics indus- In Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, try was developing, enabling improved naval Technical Manual TM-E 30-480 (September), communications systems. 303–322. Washington, DC: Government Japan entered World War II with what Printing Office. appeared to be huge advantages. It had a Wikipedia. “Military Communication of Feudal large and battle-tested fleet far in excess of Japan.” [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ any of the Allies. It had more carriers Military_Communication_of_Feudal and naval aircraft and well-trained crews. _Japan. But having to fight to defend its own sea

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trade routes as well as battling with the (SIGINT); Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 May United States, Japan was on the road to 1905); World War II defeat within less than two years. One key Sources factor was its lack of industrial capacity com- Evans, David C., and Mark R. Peattie. 1997. pared to the United States. In such technolo- Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the gies as radio and radar Japan could not keep Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, up with U.S. developments. By 1943–1944, MD: Naval Institute Press. Japan was producing probably less than 10 Howard, William L. “Collection of Japanese percent of U.S. production in electronics and W.W.II Military Radios.” [Online informa- tion; retrieved April 2006.] http://www communications gear, and Japan’s radio .armyradio.com/arsc/customer/pages.php designs were by then in- ?pageurl=/publish/Articles/William creasingly obsolete. Naval forces suffered _Howard_Japan/Collection_Of_Japanese accordingly. _Radios.htm. The Fourth Section of Japan’s Naval Gen- Operational History of Japanese Naval Communica- tions, Dec. 1941–Aug. 1945. Walnut Creek, eral Staff focused on fleet communications CA: Aegean Park Press (reprinting a 1946 and code-breaking efforts. (Confusingly, U.S. Government study). there was also a separate Communications Whitlock, Duane L. 1995. “The Silent War Department in the navy; it was concerned Against the Japanese Navy.” Naval War with the training and allocation of radio College Review Autumn: 43–52. operators.) Japan’s navy made wide use of cipher machines to protect its vital long- distance communication. These were known Joint Assault Signal Company to the Allies using a color code, such as the (JASCO) “Jade” or “Coral” or, ultimately, “Purple” machines. The machines used a series of In late 1943, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff cre- rotors and selector switches or plugs to enci- ated a new organization designed to provide pher and decipher top secret messages. On improved communications links between the other end of the technology scale, Japan land, sea, and air forces during amphibious also made effective use of radio silence—as operations. The Joint Assault Signal Com- with the naval task force that attacked Pearl pany (JASCO) was formed by adding the Harbor—to confuse Allied efforts. naval shore fire control and Army Air Force In the postwar years, the Japanese Mar- air liaison parties—which had been too small itime Self Defense Force, formed a decade to be independent units—to special Army after the war’s end, by the early 2000s had signal companies that had handled commu- grown to once again be the world’s third nications for shore battalions since the sum- largest naval force. Its communication links mer of 1942. The JASCO was commanded by are among the best in the world, relying sub- an Army major because it was much larger stantially on the country’s extensive elec- than a normal signal company, with an autho- tronics industry. rization of between 500 and 600 Army, Navy, Christopher H. Sterling and Army Air Force personnel. These men were to implement common communications See also Code Breaking; Deception; Japan: Air Force; Magic; Midway, Battle of (3–6 June procedures to enable all services to effectively 1942); Radio Silence; Signals Intelligence communicate during an amphibious assault.

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These procedures included planning for joint JASCO. On hotly contested beaches, such as radio frequencies, message transmission pro- Saipan, JASCO casualties were often very cedures, coordination for close air support, high, because the men could not provide for and control of naval gunfire against shore their own protection and still carry out their targets. communications missions. The JASCO did not function as an integral Wherever JASCOs were employed, con- unit during operations. When an amphibi- gestion of radio circuits was reduced and ous landing occurred the various JASCO dependable communications were provided teams would be attached to the appropriate for air-ground-sea operations. After World divisional units needing support. Air liai- War II, the JASCOs were eliminated and son teams (each consisting of one officer and replaced by the air and naval gunfire liaison three enlisted men, all members of the Air companies of the Marine Corps. The JAS- Force) would be attached to battalion and COs had proven indispensable in linking regimental headquarters and to division air, ground, and naval communications dur- headquarters. Naval shore fire control teams ing complex joint operations during World (two officers, five enlisted men) would be War II. attached to each battalion landing team (the Steven J. Rauch combat battalion and its support units). See also Radio; World War II Communications teams, made up of Army Signal Corps men, would be assigned to Sources each shore battalion to provide radio and Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the wire links between shore battalions and their Message Through: A Branch History of the US shore parties, supply dumps, and evacuation Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Army Center of Military History. stations. Once the situation stabilized and Thompson, George Raynor, and Dixie R. Harris. command and control established for the 1966. The Signal Corps: The Outcome (Mid- units responsible for sustained ground oper- 1943 Through 1945). Washington, DC: Center ations, the JASCO teams would be recalled for Military History. and evacuated to prepare for the next amphibious operation. During World War II eleven JASCOs were Joint Tactical Information created that served in the European, Central Distribution System (JTIDS) Pacific, and Southwest Pacific theaters. Three JASCOs were operating on the beaches of The Joint Tactical Information Distribution Normandy during the landings in June 1944. System (JTIDS) provides the American mil- A platoon of the 294th JASCO provided the itary services with theater command-and- only communication system available on control abilities using a secure, high-capacity Omaha Beach until noon, when other com- data link communications system for tactical munications units were able to begin opera- combat. It uses L-band frequencies (960–1215 tions. At Kwajalein Atoll, a JASCO attached MHz) and can handle large amounts of data to the 4th Marine Division improved artillery, at high speed. It supplies integrated informa- air, and naval coordination to a great extent. tion distribution, position location, and iden- On Iwo Jima, artillery, naval, and air coordi- tification capabilities. Its resistance to nation was described as superb due to jamming and use of data encryption make

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the JTIDS a remarkably secure network communication of information granting U.S. system. The JTIDS provides computer-to- forces situation awareness (dominant bat- computer connectivity for any military plat- tlespace knowledge). Indeed, Link-16 is at form—its terminals are found on Navy times used as a synonym for JTIDS. Some- submarines, Air Force fighters, and Airborne times it is referred to as being basically a Warning and Control System planes. Its protocol providing integrated software for maximum range is between 300 and 500 data processing. More precisely, it is more miles. than a data link; it is a tactical system provid- The development of the JTIDS began in ing communication, navigation, and identi- 1981 with development contracts from the fication. Link-16 was used extensively and Department of Defense with Singer-Kearfott proved its effectiveness for the first time dur- (later GEC-Marconi Electronic Systems). It is ing the Gulf War (1990–1991). Being primar- now carried out by Data Link Solutions, a ily a data network, Link-16 also provides joint company formed in 1996 by BAE Sys- premium voice communication service. For tems Electronics & Integrated Solutions and advanced security, both the data and the Rockwell Collins. Multiservice operational transmissions are encrypted. One of the cru- testing was completed in 1996 and imple- cial features of the security system of Link-16 mentation for the multibillion dollar pro- is frequency hopping—terminals are con- gram took place beginning in 1998. stantly changing transmitting channels The JTIDS is a decentralized navigation according to a specific pattern. Frequency and communication system as it does not hopping, along with jitter and pseudo- depend on any central location. Instead, each random noise added to the waveform, user, as a member of a specific group, inde- prevents jamming and makes the signal pendently determines his or her own posi- exceptionally difficult to detect. Thanks to tion. The JTIDS architecture is based on a technical and operational improvements complex structure of data transmission. It (e.g., jam resistance, improved security, uses a time division multiple access tech- increased amount of information reporting, nique, which enables numerous users to reduced terminal size), as well as the exchange information at specific time inter- increased number of participants, Link-16 vals. However, this exchange is always enables transmission of up to three times limited by the length of available time slots more tactical information than its predeces- and the size of the information package to be sor, Link-11 (also known as TDL A or TADIL transmitted. JTIDS terminals automatically A), which was based on 1960s technology. broadcast outgoing messages at predesig- Link-16 is being employed not only by the nated and repeated intervals. Reede-Salomon U.S. Army but also by some other NATO error-correction mode secures undistorted members and Japan. It is currently the Pen- data transmission against enemy disruption. tagon’s key tactical data exchange system The JTIDS is a communication component for command, control, and intelligence for of a wider North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- each of the military services. tion (NATO) data radio network, Link-16, ?ukasz Kamie?ski which is also known in the United States as See also Airborne Warning and Control System Tactical Digital Information Link type J (AWACS); Gulf War (1990–1991); Jamming; (TADIL J). Link-16 aims to provide improved Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); Mobile

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Communications; North Atlantic Treaty Procurement of the JTRS system is being Organization (NATO) Communications & phased in clusters to allow incorporation of Information Systems Agency; Radio; Spread the latest technologies. The first cluster (initi- Spectrum ated in 2002) is for Army and Marine Corps Sources vehicle and helicopter radio; cluster two (ini- Federation of American Scientists. “Tactical tiated in 2003) is for handheld devices; cluster Digital Information Links (TADIL). [Online three is for Navy maritime and fixed-site radio information; retrieved December 2006.] http://www.fas.org/irp/program/ systems (initiated in 2003); and cluster four for disseminate/tadil.htm. Air Force and naval airborne radios (initiated Lockheed Martin. “Tactical Data Links— in 2003). Cluster 5 (approved in 2003, and led MIDS/JTIDS Link 16, and Variable Message by the Army) focuses on a variety of portable, Format—VMF.” [Online information; backpack, and handheld devices. Through retrieved December 2006.] http:// each of these clusters—and those yet to be www.stasys.co.uk/defence/datalinks/link _16.htm. defined—JTRS development includes such goals as effective use of open system architec- ture, cost-effective utilization of com- Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) mercial off-the-shelf technology, waveform portability, software reuse, interoperability The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS, or both with existing legacy communications “Jitters” in Pentagon terminology) is a soft- systems (backward compatibility) and across ware-based gateway allowing interoperabil- all JTRS equipment, and the ability to con- ity of different radio equipment. Focused on stantly update technology. tactical battlefield needs and developed as Perhaps the best way to understand the part of the larger Global Information Grid aims of the JTRS program is to look at what in the early 2000s, JTRS is designed to is being replaced. By the time JTRS is fully in replace existing separate systems that do not place, one integrated SDR system should operate well together. Development of civil- replace (or in some cases integrate) three- ian software-defined radio equipment made quarters of a million radios now found in the initiative possible. twenty-five to thirty legacy systems (naviga- JTRS development began in 1997, and the tion, positioning, location, identification, air- first systems (some 250,000 software-defined to-ground, air-to-air, ground-to-ground, and radios [SDRs] for the Army’s ground vehi- satellite communications). These legacy sys- cles and helicopters) are to be in operation by tems date from the 1980s (largely hardware 2007 at an initial development cost of $14 bil- defined, using single channels and requiring lion. The new SDRs will number but a third regular hardware upgrades) and 1990s (soft- of those being replaced and will require far ware defined by specific vendors and often less maintenance. While the system is being not interchangeable, using multiple fre- developed centrally for all services, each ser- quency bands, and updated by software vice is developing its own radios for use rather than hardware). within JTRS. The new equipment will inte- All of this comes at a high cost—some- grate voice, data, and video communications thing approaching $7 billion, or about links, while providing interoperability with $40,000 per JTRS radio unit when all the existing radio systems. Spectrum segments development and managerial costs are used will range from 2 MHz to above 2 GHz. included. And the program faces steep tech-

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nical problems. The desire to use a single The JTF-GNO coordinates and controls all antenna for different wavelengths makes it aspects of defense information infrastruc- difficult to pull in strong signals across the ture protection. To this end, an array of spectrum. An amplifier working the whole service-specific units interact with and report spectrum uses much more electrical power to the JTF-GNO including the Defense Infor- than one tuned for a specific frequency band. mation Systems Agency, the Computer And waveforms and transmissions that are Emergency Response Team, as well as the 1st speedily handled by analog systems are Information Operations Command, the much tougher to achieve with digital com- Navy Component Task Force–Computer putation. These and related drawbacks have Network Defense, the Air Force Forces– placed the program’s future in some doubt. Computer Network Operations, and Marine Christopher H. Sterling Forces–Integrated Network Operations, all See also Army Battle Command System dedicated to protecting the information (ABCS); Future Combat Systems (FCS); infrastructure of their respective services. Global Information Grid (GIG); Warfigher The JTF-GNO directs these assets to meet Information Network–Tactical (WIN-T); threats to defense information networks. World Wide Military Command and Control In December 1998, responding to the hack- System (WWMCCS) ing of U.S. military networks and the lax Sources state of network defense revealed by exer- Government Accountability Office. 2004. cises such as “Eligible Receiver” (1997) and Challenges and Risks Associated with the Joint the “Solar Sunrise” event (1998), the Depart- Tactical Radio System Program. [Online report; ment of Defense set up the Joint Task Force– retrieved March 2006.] http://www.gao Computer Network Defense to protect .gov/new.items/d03879r.pdf. defense information infrastructure. In Dec- Government Accountability Office. 2004. Defense Acquisitions: The Global Information em ber 2000, the Department of Defense Grid and Challenges Facing Its Implementation. established the Joint Task Force–Computer [Online report; retrieved March 2006.] Network Attack with the mission to plan http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04858 and, if necessary, conduct offensive network .pdf. operations as directed by the government. Joint Tactical Radio System. Home page. [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] Both task forces were placed under the direc- http://jtrs.army.mil/sections/technical tion of the U.S. Space Command. information/fset_technical_sca.html. These task forces were merged in April 2001, renamed Joint Task Force–Computer Network Operations (JTF-CNO), and placed Joint Task Force–Global Network under the army’s Strategic Command (now Operations (JTF-GNO) Network Enterprise Technology Command). This was partially prompted by a number of The Joint Task Force–Global Network Oper- governmental reports about the potential ations (JTF-GNO), based in Arlington, Vir- militarization of the Internet by strategic ginia, is the U.S. Department of Defense’s rivals such as China. The unity of command operational unit charged with securing the created by this merger would better prepare military’s information infrastructure and the United States to face the threats posed prosecuting offensive information warfare by asymmetrical warfare in the post–Cold operations. War era.

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In 2004, the JTF-CNO was renamed Joint tieth centuries. Messages could be sent con- Task Force–Global Network Operations. The siderable distances in a fairly short space of renaming and reassignment of the JTF-GNO time, simply by “talking drum” signals, a from JTF-CNO reflects the awareness of the kind of signaling system. This was also military that its ongoing overseas operations called the bush telegraph or even (in mid- rely on public infrastructure. The JTF-GNO’s nineteenth century United States) grapevine mission to protect the Global Information telegraph, each of the terms applying the Grid underscores the new reality of then-new electric telegraph to ancient means extended overseas operations and the of communication. Only on occasion was a reliance of the U.S. military on information specifically military application intended. networks to create battlefield information Another early use was in Brazil, early in dominance. the twentieth century. A jungle telegraph John Laprise line, formally termed the Strategic Telegraph See also Defense Information Systems Agency Line, was built from Mato Grosso north to (DISA); Global Information Grid (GIG); Amazonas and was one of the first break- Information Revolution in Military Affairs throughs in penetrating the sertão, or “back- (IRMA); National Communications System lands.” It was constructed between 1907 and (NCS); Network Enterprise Technology 1915 by a government commission headed Command (NETCOM); Strategic Communi- by an explorer and army engineer, Colonel cations Command (STRATCOM) Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Rondon Sources directed the work of the army officers and Bendrath, Ralf. 2003. “The American Cyber- penal battalions who did the actual work. Angst and the Real World—Any Link?” In Telegraph relay stations consisted of a group Bombs and Bandwidth: The Emerging Relation- of straw huts, which were located some 50 or ship Between Information Technology and 75 miles from the nearest neighbors on either Security, edited by Robert Latham, 49–73. New York: The New Press. side. After his 1913–1914 Brazilian expedi- Denning, Dorothy. 2003. “Cyber Security as an tion, former U.S. President Theodore Roo- Emergent Infrastructure.” In Bombs and sevelt told a press conference in New York Bandwidth: The Emerging Relationship Between that he had never seen, or knew of, a project Information Technology and Security, edited by equal to the Strategic Telegraph Line. With Robert Latham, 25–48. New York: The New Press. the introduction of radiotelegraphy, how- Rattray, Gregory J. 2001. Strategic Warfare in ever, the telegraph line soon became obso- Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. lete. Its one enduring contribution was access to new settlement regions, for the men who built the line cleared a path about 40 “Jungle Telegraph” meters wide through the jungle—roughly double the height of the surrounding for- The widely used term “jungle telegraph” est—so that trees would not fall on the tele- has been applied to many different things graph installations. Rudimentary as it was, it during the twentieth century—depending was the first overland connection between on who is talking and what period is being southern Brazil’s population centers and the dealt with. The phrase may have been western Amazon’s rich rubber country. applied first to the native use of drums in A very different meaning developed in Africa in the late nineteenth and early twen- later years. Concern for the “jungle tele-

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graph” was one of the first lessons taught at former sought to develop a battleship and the military school training to combat tracker battle cruiser force to rival that of the latter. teams for guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. Draw- Thanks to a furious building program, ing on lessons learned from the British in Britain’s Grand Fleet remained larger than Malaysia and the French in Vietnam, Amer- Germany’s High Seas Fleet when war began ican forces were trained to move in a stealthy in 1914. Both fleets shadowed one another in fashion. As one American later described it, the first two years of the war as the Royal one could not touch any small trees as their Navy sought to blockade the German coast motion would be a tip-off to enemy troops. and bottle up her naval force. In other words, the moving foliage would After months of sparring, raiding, and “telegraph” the troops’ location. small engagements (during several of which, Widespread slang usage of the term usu- British signals experience left much to be ally indicates informal modes of communica- desired), elements of the two fleets met off tion—a given group of people who know the coast of Jutland (Denmark) in the North something has happened (or is about to) Sea on the afternoon of 31 May, and action thanks to word getting around via the so- lasted into the next day. Communications called jungle telegraph or grapevine. Some systems and their application played a sig- have suggested that the Internet is the newest nificant role at Jutland. Indeed, the British jungle telegraph for organizing action or fleet, commanded by Admiral John Jellicoe, positions on issues. The term used this way began the battle with a significant advan- connotes a quiet, informal, or even clandes- tage. Thanks to the 1914 capture of code- tine mode of communication, whether of books from the German cruiser Magdeburg, military value or not. the British Admiralty’s Room 40 had long Christopher H. Sterling been able to read German wireless commu- See also Music Signals; Telegraph; Vietnam War nications. Intercepts of German wireless (1959–1975) gave notice that the High Seas fleet had sailed, but due to poor communications Sources between the Admiralty and the fleet, made Gall, Norman. 1978. “Letter from Rhondônia: little effective use of this information. Part II—Strategic Reach.” New York: In the fighting itself, the British ships made American Universities Field Staff Reports. Rodgers, Sue. 2001. “Combat Tracker Teams: heavy use of signals of various kinds—nearly Dodging an Elusive Enemy.” [Online article; 900 of them, or more than one per minute at retrieved September 2005.] http://www the height of fighting. A British seaplane was .uswardogs.org/id153.html. the first aircraft in history to transmit reports on enemy ship movements, but weather con- ditions limited further flights. On the other Jutland, Battle of (1916) hand, during the action, the Royal Navy relied perhaps too heavily on traditional flag The Battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916) communication among ships, which was was the central naval battle of World War I, often compromised by difficult conditions— as well as the most important engagement increasing gun smoke, the distance between involving battleships. The battle was a direct ships, the large number of ships involved, outcome of the early twentieth-century naval sea conditions, and eventual darkness, all rivalry between Germany and Britain, as the of which contributed to inept signaling or

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misunderstood signals. Night signaling by manders did not keep fleet commanders ade- color lights was poor and often compromised quately informed of events. Though more by enemy interception. As Jellicoe himself British ships were sunk and they suffered the later commented, the German system of heaviest casualties, the British tactical defeat recognition signals was excellent, while that somewhat masked their strategic victory as of the Royal Navy was practically nil. the German High Seas Fleet did not venture In too many instances, British messages out in strength for the rest of World War I. were either not received at all or were noted Marc L. Schwartz and Christopher H. Sterling late or misconstrued. Wireless telegraphy See also Code, Codebook; Code Breaking; was not utilized as effectively as it should Flaghoist; Flags; Flagship; Radio; Room 40; have been to back up flag signals, especially Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); United on Admiral David Beatty’s flagship, the Lion. Kingdom: Royal Navy; World War I Most seriously impacting the outcome of Jutland, captains and other senior officers of Sources participating British vessels failed to keep Campbell, John. 1998. Jutland: An Analysis of the their fleet commanders sufficiently informed Fighting. New York: Lyons Press. Kent, Barrie. 1993. “Jutland.” In Signal! A of enemy ship sightings and action. All con- History of Signalling in the Royal Navy, 49–66. cerned seemed to presume that others knew Clanfield, UK: Hyden House. more than they in fact did. Massie, Robert K. 2003. “Jutland.” In Castles of In the years of analysis and controversy Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the that followed, signals effectiveness was one Great War at Sea, 553–684. New York: Random House. focus of discussion. While intership commu- Steel, Nigel, and Peter Hart. 2003. Jutland 1916: nication within the Royal Navy seemed Death in the Grey Wastes. London: Casell. strong, links with the Admiralty intelligence Yates, Keith. 2000. Flawed Victory: Jutland, 1916. offices were poor, and individual ship com- Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.

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Kilby, Jack St. Clair (1923–2005) Kilby went on to pioneer military, industrial, and Noyce, Robert Norton and commercial applications of microchip (1927–1990) technology. He headed teams that built both the first military system and the first com- Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce share the puter incorporating integrated circuits. He invention of the silicon chip, or integrated later co-invented both the handheld calcula- circuit, which forms the heart of all modern tor and the thermal printer that was used in solid state electronics devices, both military portable data terminals. He retired from TI in and civilian. Working for different compa- 1983, but continued to teach at Texas A&M nies located in Texas and California, they University. In 2000, Kilby, who held sixty independently developed the gist of the idea patents, was awarded the Nobel Prize in in 1958–1959. Kilby’s patent was granted Physics for his role in innovating the chip. He first by five months, but Noyce’s device, the died 20 June 2005 in Dallas. “planar” integrated circuit, would come to Robert Noyce was born in Burlington, dominate the semiconductor market. After Iowa, on 12 December 1927. He graduated years of litigation, the two companies (Texas with a bachelor of arts degree in physics Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor) from Grinnell College (Iowa) in 1949 and a agreed to cross-license their devices. doctor of philosophy degree from Massa- Jack Kilby was born 8 November 1923 in chusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. Jefferson City, Missouri. He earned his bach- After making transistors for Philco, Noyce elor of science degree in electrical engineer- began work at Shockley Semiconductor in ing from the University of Illinois (1947) and 1956. He and several others left to form master of science degree in the same field Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, where he from the University Wisconsin (1950). He served as research director. In January 1959 joined Texas Instruments (TI) in 1958, and Noyce made his first detailed notes about a on 12 September demonstrated an early ver- complete solid state circuit. Six months later sion of what would become the microchip, Noyce created an integrated circuit made of centerpiece of future integrated circuits. silicon. He and Gordon Moore left to found

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Integrated Electronics (Intel) in 1968, and every other aspect of the ensuing war. The Noyce served as president until 1975. He U.S. Army had only a few soldiers in South eventually held sixteen patents. Often called Korea as members of the Korean Military the “mayor” of Silicon Valley, which he did Assistance Group, and they possessed only so much to create, Noyce died in Austin, twelve radio stations. The Republic of Korea Texas, on 3 June 1990. (ROK) had a fair communications system, The importance of both men’s accomplish- but most of its facilities were centered in ments is that they found a common solution Seoul, which the enemy captured in the first to how best to move electronics to the post- days of fighting. transistor stage with the monolithic (formed America’s Far East Command (FEC), from a single crystal) integrated circuit. based in Tokyo under General Douglas Instead of designing and assembling smaller MacArthur, was little better off. Communica- components as had been the practice to that tions units were under-strength and some- point, they both found ways to fabricate times ill trained; years of low military entire networks of discrete components in a budgets and cushy occupation duties in single sequence by laying them into a single Japan had taken a toll on Army prepared- crystal (chip) of semiconductor material. ness. MacArthur’s principal force in Japan Kilby used germanium and Noyce used sil- was the Eighth Army. In prewar maneuvers icon—and the latter became the most widely much of its communications equipment got accepted material. wet and dirty, had not been properly cleaned Christopher H. Sterling and stored, and therefore had deteriorated. See also Miniaturization; Solid State Electronics; There were also shortages of basic equip- Transistor ment and spare parts. Fortunately Korea had a once-magnificent Sources underground telegraph system, the famous Berlin, Leslie. 2005. The Man Behind the Mukden Cable, running from Tokyo to the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of southern ROK port of Pusan (soon to become Silicon Valley. New York: Oxford University Press. the U.S. Army’s major supply base) and then Reid, T. R. 1985. The Chip: How Two Americans north. Built by the Japanese while they con- Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolu- trolled Korea (1910–1945), the cable had also tion. New York: Simon and Schuster. deteriorated. As it was immobile it served Riordan, Michael, and Lillian Hoddeson. 1997. strategic rather than immediate tactical Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age. needs. Nevertheless, it proved vital as Eighth New York: Norton. Wolfe, Tom. 1983. “The Tinkerings of Robert Army communicators entered combat. Noyce: How the Sun Rose on the Silicon Invaluable to Eighth Army survival was Valley.” Esquire December: 346–374. the prewar Operation Roll-Up. Much World War II communications equipment had been abandoned all over the Pacific. A good deal Korean War (1950–1953) had been properly mothballed, and was col- lected and stockpiled in Japan in 1949–1950. The North Korean attack on South Korea on FEC and Eighth Army lived off this equip- 25 June 1950 caught the United States off ment during the early, desperate months of guard in military communications as in the Korean War. The equipment was not

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enough, however, to save the first of Eighth Army signalmen had to make do with a vari- Army’s divisions to enter the conflict; it was ety of desperate expedients. The range of badly mauled in July 1950, partly because of Eighth Army’s very high frequency radios, inadequate communications. The division’s for example, was extended by banking radio signal company had been split up, with waves off nearby mountains. At one point, some of its members being detached to per- lacking in personnel, the acting Eighth Army form a strategic theater function (the provi- signal officer helped install communications sion of stopgap communications between equipment himself. Tokyo and Pusan) and thus was not avail- Despite these problems, the communica- able when the unit entered action. Elsewhere tions system slowly improved. As Ameri- many signalmen were pressed into the fight- can and ROK divisions were forced back ing as infantry. into an ever-shrinking perimeter around As more Eighth Army divisions entered Pusan, the distances their troops, radios, and battle in July–August 1950, the Signal Corps wire had to cover also diminished, while discovered just how ramshackle American reserves were rushed to Korea from FEC and military communications had become. elsewhere. By mid-September, the situation Radios were increasingly vital because the began to stabilize. swift movements of American divisions With the subsequent Inchon landing and (actually, retreats during those months) Eighth Army’s breakout from the Pusan made it difficult for wire layers to keep up. perimeter, communications resources were Few in number as they were, these divisions stretched again as United Nations (UN) had to stretch their fronts far beyond what forces moved north. MacArthur then acti- they had been trained and equipped to vated three field corps headquarters, two cover, especially in terms of radio ranges. for Eighth Army and one for his Inchon Hastily laid wire, when it could keep up, landing force, and they had to be supplied was vulnerable to artillery fire, tank treads with signal personnel and equipment. The (friendly as well as enemy), and the scaveng- arrival of mobile radio-teletype equipment ing of Korean civilian refugees, who cut up in September helped a great deal. wire to serve as harnesses for their packs; The communications situation was never indeed American soldiers were guilty of that again as poor as it had been in July and practice in their precipitous retreat. August, not even during the sweeping Chi- Eighth Army also found that its headquar- nese Communist offensives and UN coun- ters signal equipment was inadequate to teroffensives of November 1950–May 1951. handle its own divisions, let alone ROK units After truce talks began in mid-1951, the front under its command. Like any field army, became largely static, and wire and radio Eighth Army should have had two or more operations more routine, as is evident in Sig- subordinate field corps headquarters to coor- nal Corps’ situation reports for the remain- dinate its multitude of divisions. However, der of the conflict. corps headquarters had been eliminated It became possible during this period of a before the war as an economy measure. more stable front (lasting to mid-1953) to Eighth Army signalmen were also expected introduce more rugged, yet lighter, wire and to provide communications facilities for the radio equipment, including some radios news media. As a result, FEC and Eighth using transistors instead of vacuum tubes.

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Paradoxically, the Signal Corps also experi- See also Army Signal Corps; China, People’s mented with one communications mode Republic of revived from the past—carrier pigeons. Sources Unfortunately, the American birds proved Appleman, Roy E. 1961. South to the Naktong, vulnerable to an enemy worse than bullets: North to the Yalu. Washington, DC: Office of Korean hawks. the Chief of Military History. The Korean War demonstrated once again Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. “The Korean how vital communications are in combat. War.” In Getting the Message Through: A The North Koreans and Chinese, despite Branch History of the US Army Signal Corps, 321–329. Washington, DC: Center of Military their lack of modern communications equip- History. ment (they made extensive use of bugles, Shiflet, Kenneth E. 1965. “ ‘Communications whistles, and other crude methods), were Hill’ in Korea.” In The Story of the U.S. Army dangerous and resourceful. UN commanders Signal Corps, edited by Max L. Marshall, had to shuffle their limited resources to 188–191. New York: Franklin Watts. Westover. J. G. 1955. Combat Support in Korea, cope—and that required the best communi- 86–97. Washington, DC: Combat Forces cations FEC and Eighth Army could provide. Press. Despite the communications inadequacies of the early months of the war, the best turned out to be good enough. Karl G. Larew

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Lamarr, Hedy (1913–2000) jammed. She developed the idea (later dubbed “frequency hopping”) that by con- Best known as a glamorous film star during stantly and quickly changing a signal’s fre- Hollywood’s golden age, Hedy Lamarr had quency, jamming could be prevented. Under a first-rate mind and was one of the develop- her married name (then Hedy Kiesler ers of what later became known as spread Markey), she shared patent 2,292,387 (11 spectrum technology. How she got interested August 1942) with her co-inventor, avant- in things technical is, however, not entirely garde music composer George Antheil (who clear. supplied much of the technical knowledge), Born in Vienna on 9 November 1913 as for what they called their “Secret Communi- Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, she attended act- cation System.” ing school and appeared in many early This seminal invention was the first in- Czech and German films starting in 1930. stance of what would later become known as Her fifth film, Extase (Ecstasy, 1932) became spread-spectrum communications. Lamarr infamous for its nude scenes (she was 19), and Antheil’s frequency-hopping techniques, considered daring at the time. based on available technologies of the time, Hedy Lamarr (she got her last name from used player piano rolls to jump among film mogul Louis B. Mayer on her arrival in eighty-eight frequencies as a means of making Hollywood in 1937) starred in several feature radio-guided torpedoes harder for an enemy films before and early in World War II. She to detect or jam. Wartime attempts to interest married an Austrian armaments manufac- the Navy in the idea failed (officials figured it turer, Fritz Mandl (the first of her six hus- could never be made small or robust enough bands) shortly thereafter, and it may be from for a torpedo), and the military only took up him that her technical interests were first spread spectrum technology two decades aroused. later when digital technology made the idea Mandl had sought a means of radio- viable. By the time of the Cuban Missile Cri- guided weapons that could not be readily sis the armed forces were routinely using

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frequency hopping to scramble signals. time to train, are expensive, and are often Many details of the patent, however, overworked. By the early 2000s, computer remained classified until 1985. software was approaching the ability to More recently, spread spectrum has been translate human language in real time. found ideal for interleaving (multiplex- U.S. involvement in military actions in the ing) many messages simultaneously, thus Middle East drove the new development. becoming a more efficient transmitting The military needed far more Arabic speak- method than ordinary single-frequency ers than it could find. In Afghanistan in 2002 techniques and making it the basis of Inter- the U.S. Army used a handheld “phrasela- net and cell phone traffic. Despite these tor” device that could mechanically speak applications, neither inventor profited 800 to 1,000 often-used pre-chosen phrases in because their 1942 patent expired decades Arabic that had been recorded by a human before the modern wireless boom. Lamarr’s speaker. But while the system could be used film career began to dwindle after the war, with many different languages, it offered and in the 1950s she retired from making only one-way communication. movies. She died 19 January 2000 in Alta- The Army also experimented with the mont Springs, Florida. not-for-profit SRI International–developed Christopher H. Sterling mobile software system called IraqComm, which provides the beginnings of a more See also Jamming; SIGSALY; Spread Spectrum natural two-way language interface in collo- quial Iraqi Arabic. IraqComm integrates Sources three advanced software technologies: auto- Braun, Hans-Joachim. 1997. “Advanced matic speech recognition (ASR), machine Weaponry of the Stars.” American Heritage of Invention and Technology Spring. Available translation (MT), and text-to-speech synthe- online at: http://www.americanheritage sis (TTS). To start a dialog, one speaks into a .com/articles/magazine/it/1997/4/1997 microphone and the system records the _4_10.shtml. voice. The ASR module processes the record- Chang, Kenneth. 2004. “Hollywood Star’s ing and displays what it heard on a screen. Wartime Secret Becomes a Screenplay. New The MT module translates the phrase into York Times, May 4, C2. Severo, Richard. 2000. “Hedy Lamarr, Sultry Iraqi Arabic. Finally, the TTS module then Star Who Reigned in Hollywood of 30’s and “speaks” this translation, which is also dis- 40’s Dies at 86.” New York Times, January 20, played on the screen. The system began with A16. a vocabulary of nearly 40,000 English and 50,000 Iraqi Arabic words, and runs on com- mercial off-the-shelf hardware. The Army Language Translation was experimenting in Iraq with more than thirty of the devices by mid-2006. In a world of multiple spoken languages, The Defense Advanced Research Projects the ability to understand allied or enemy Agency issued a 2001 contract to IBM’s messages across language lines is a vital part Thomas Watson Laboratories. IBM researchers of military communication. The most com- developed the Multilingual Automatic mon historical approach has been to use a Speech-to-Speech Translator (MAS TOR) as a human translator who was adept at both two-way, free-form speech translator that uses languages being used. But translators take natural spoken language for people who do

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not share a common language. The focus of October 2006.] http://www.iraqcomm the MASTOR software program is to convey .com/. the meaning of what was said, even if minor Willing, Richard. 2006. “Military Tests Portable Translators.” USA Today, December 20, 8A. errors are made by the speaker(s) or speech recognizer. During normal operation, users speak into a microphone (one at a time) that is interfaced with the MASTOR program. The Laser MASTOR recognizes and translates the speech, then vocalizes the translation in Though Albert Einstein predicted the phe- the target language for the foreign-language nomenon as early as 1917, the laser (light speaker to hear. The foreign-language speaker amplification by stimulated emission of radi- can then speak into the microphone in his or ation) has developed over the past four her own language, and the MASTOR trans- decades since the first ones were built in lates and vocalizes that speech in the original 1960. Military need for improved modes of language. Initially developed to work with communication as well as weapons potential Mandarin Chinese and English, and later has fueled and funded much of the research extended to Arabic, the MASTOR can run on into laser capability. a laptop computer or personal digital assis- More than a thousand different kinds of tant. It operates with a vocabulary of about laser are classified by the type of material 150,000 words. used—solid, liquid/chemical, gas, or semi- By 2005, the Army was experimenting with conductor (also called diode types, these the MASTOR in quiet areas within Iraq. It also were among the first, appearing in 1962). employed the Global Autonomous Language The first two have strong drawbacks for mil- Exploitation (GALE) system to read broad- itary use—power and cooling requirements casts and Web sites. GALE experiments took with solid lasers, and the substantial chem- place in both Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, ical plant required for liquid lasers. Once attempting to deal with both the formal lan- initial problems with heat dissipation were guages and regional dialects. By 2009, military resolved in the 1970s, lasers became widely officials expect to be using the system in bat- employed in business (e.g., barcode scanning tlefield conditions, and additional languages in retail sales), industry (micromachining, will be added. While none of these systems are measurement, welding, and cutting), medi- as good as a human translator, they are getting cine (surgery), and consumer products better—faster, more culturally accurate, and (printers and compact disc players). Semi- more comprehensive. conductor lasers form an essential part of Christopher H. Sterling commercial and military fiber optic telecom- See also Defense Advanced Research Projects munication systems. Agency (DARPA); Iraq War (2003–Present) Current applications of lasers on the tacti- cal battlefield include their use as range find- Sources ers, target designators (e.g., “painting” a IBM. “Speech-to-Speech Translation.” [Online target), and various guidance systems. information; retrieved October 2006.] http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/ Strategic laser use falls into two categories: research.nsf/pages/r.uit.innovation.html. near-term research into application as anti- IraqComm. “Speech to Speech Translation satellite weapons, and longer-term efforts to System.” [Online information; retrieved develop a system for missile defense (also

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known as the Strategic Defense Initiative). article; retrieved June 2006.] http://www The many military roles of satellites (partic- .globalsecurity.org/military/library/ ularly in surveillance, arms control verifi- report/1988/MDR.htm. cations, and communications) has made them potential military targets. The sensitive optics on such satellites are vulnerable Lights and Beacons to an overload of light such as would be provided in a laser attack. Military research Beacons are fires or torches (or, more re- continues to seek more efficient lasers as cently, electronic lights) lit on towers or other well as more rugged ones, able to stand up high points for a variety of navigational pur- to battle conditions. poses (as in lighthouses) or for military sig- The laser has also proven valuable in com- naling. Beacons are an ancient form of visual munications between submarines and their signaling and were often used in relays to base because it eliminates the dangers of the cover distances beyond line of sight. traditional but detectable radio signal. A Such systems were widely used in ancient blue-green laser is transmitted to a satellite times. Greek author Aeschylus’s play Aga - that, in turn, relays the beam to the subma- mem non opens with the lines, “And now I am rine. The ray is only relayed for a millionth watching for the signal of the beacon, the of a second so there is virtually no chance blaze of fire that brings a voice from Troy, and that it will be detected by anyone else. The tidings of its capture.” In Scandinavia, many submarine’s receiver picks up and decodes hill forts were part of networks of beacons to the signal. Even if someone else did intercept warn about pillaging expeditions from other the signal, they would not be able to decode Scandinavians (“Vikings”). The “Brecon Bea- it because the receiver has to be the exact cons” in Wales take their name from beacons shade of the laser beam. used to warn of approaching English raiders Most technical experts agree that laser tech- in the Middle Ages. The best-known British nology is still at relatively early stages of example is the beacons used in 1588 to warn development. Potential laser weapons remain of the approaching Spanish Armada. This under study, as do other applications. chain of beacons gave the name to many “Bea- Christopher H. Sterling con Hills” in the south of England. See also Fiber Optics; Satellite Communications; During the American Revolution, beacons Submarine Communications were often used to warn one side or the other of troop movements. In central New Jersey, Sources beacons were placed atop the Blue Hills as Bertolotti, M. 2004. The History of the Laser. Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics Press. part of a network of twenty-three beacons Bromberg, J. L. 1991. The Laser in America. located on strategic heights around the cen- Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. tral part of the colony where they were visi- Hecht, Jeff. 2005. Beam: The Race to Make the ble to most members of the New Jersey Laser. New York: Oxford University Press. militia. Lord Stirling directed construction of Holonyak, N., Jr. 1997. “The Semiconductor the network in March 1779 under the orders Laser: A Thirty-Five Year Perspective.” Proceedings of the IEEE 85 (11): 1678–1693. of George Washington. Mirra, David R. 1988. “Lasers and Their Beacons have often been used to mislead, Potential for Tactical Military Use.” [Online especially by enemy forces or pirates. A fire

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 271 Lincoln in the Telegraph Office could direct a ship against cliffs or beaches, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office so the cargo could be looted after the ship sank or ran aground. Likewise, military While serving as president during the Amer- forces could be misdirected. ican Civil War (1861–1865), Abraham Lincoln Large light beacons were installed at many was able to play a far more direct and real- American coast defense installations. Kept time role in planning and directing military inside buildings or bunkers much of the actions than had any prior national leader. time, these lights could be rolled out and What made this possible was the telegraph, used to illuminate enemy ships not far off and specifically a telegraph sending and shore, thus aiding coast artillery in targeting receiving office within the War Department, those vessels. This was clearly more of a tac- housed next door to the White House. tical rather than signaling use of a light Lincoln was first exposed to the tele- beacon. graph’s potential while still practicing law in All light and beacon systems suffered Illinois in 1857. By the time he reached the from high cost (because many people were White House four years later, he readily required to build and then maintain them), understood the technology’s potential and concerns about visibility in poor weather value. In April 1861, Secretary of War Simon conditions, and time (unless they were Cameron created the U.S. Military Telegraph staffed at all times). Over the past several Corps, and it was that organization that also decades, the term “beacon” has also been served Lincoln. The telegraph office was used to apply to radio and audio signaling soon relocated next to Edwin Stanton’s office devices. (he had replaced Cameron on 15 January Christopher H. Sterling 1862) and both the president and Stanton See also Ancient Signals; Ardois Light; Coast could often be found there, either reading Defense; Coston Signals; Fire/Flame/ telegraph reports or sending messages. Torch; Native American Signaling; Lincoln would come to the office, often Night Signals; Searchlights/Signal on a daily basis, especially when major bat- Blinkers tles were under way. He would generally read the telegraphic traffic received since his Sources Holzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson. 1995. last visit and might send up to a dozen mes- “Fire Beacons.” In The Early History of Data sages a day to specific leaders in the field. Networks, 15–20. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE The ability to send and receive messages far Computer Society. faster than in the past underscored the grow- Raleigh, James. 1983. “Beacons: Means of ing disagreements between Lincoln and Communication and Celebration.” [Online article; retrieved March 2006.] http:// General George McClellan, the commander www .greenbrooknj.com/main6_04 of the Union armies in 1862–1863. Likewise .htm. the messages of 1864–1865 between Lincoln Sheil, T., and A. Sheil. “Light Signals.” [Online and General Ulysses Grant ranged over information; retrieved March 2006.] http:// strategy as well as tactics and logistics. The www.thortrains.net/RRLIGHT1.HTM. amount of traffic always increased during Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical Communications Techniques. Orlando, FL: major engagements. Martin-Marietta (Reprinted by Arno Press, Lincoln’s messages to and from the War 1974). Department telegraph office were usually

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President Abraham Lincoln drafts the Emancipation Proclamation in the Military Telegraph Office, located in the War Department next to the White House. (Library of Congress) transmitted in hours, despite the time- daily use of the telegraph to the end of the consuming need for encipherment or decod- war, just shortly before his assassination. ing. On occasion, however, as much as a week Christopher H. Sterling could pass due to cut lines, mobile troops, or See also American Civil War (1861–1865); the need to utilize couriers in some places Stager, Anson (1825–1885); Telegraph; U.S. where lines were down or did not exist. Such Military Telegraph Service (USMTS) lapses were more likely for distant engage- ments—such as the Battle of Mobile Bay in Sources mid-1864—rather than battles in the main Bates, David Homer. 1907. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United theater of war in northern Virginia. States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil Lincoln came to the telegraph office as one War. New York: Century. means of gaining respite from the pressures Markle, Donald E., ed. 2003. The Telegraph Goes and office seekers in the White House and to War: The Personal Diary of David Homer would sometimes spend hours, even staying Bates, Lincoln’s Telegraph Operator. Hamilton, NY: Edmonston Publishing. overnight, in the telegraph office. Indeed, Wheeler, Tom. 2006. Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The he drafted the first (June 1862) version of his Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the landmark Emancipation Proclamation while Telegraph to Win the Civil War. New York: there. Lincoln made active and virtually Collins.

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Lowe, Thaddeus S. C. (1832–1913)

Nineteenth-century innovator Thaddeus Lowe provided balloon observation and artillery spotting for Union Army forces during the first two years of the American Civil War (1861–1865), presaging later aero- nautical intelligence and aerial military com- munications. Lowe was born in New Hampshire in August 1832, and left school after the fourth grade. He first learned of balloons while working his way toward Portland, Maine. For a time he sold patent medicines and adopted the “professor” title he used throughout his life. He apprenticed to a shoemaking firm in Boston and on his own time experimented with lifting cats with kites. By 1856, a year after his marriage (he would father ten children), he was experi- menting with tethered balloons inflated with hydrogen gas. Learning more about balloons and their operation, Lowe sought to make a transat- Balloon enthusiast Thaddeus S. C. Lowe observes the lantic aerial voyage. An experiment working Battle of Fair Oaks from his balloon, the Intrepid, on in that direction involved a 650-mile, nine- 31 May 1862. Both Union and Confederate forces used hour trip in April 1861 by his balloon Enter- balloons for observation and intelligence work during prise from Cincinnati to the Chesapeake Bay the early part of the Civil War. (National Archives) area to prove his theory of easterly winds at altitude, but winds carried him instead toward the Carolina coast and then back to telegraph messages to the ground using a Unionville, South Carolina, where he was battery-powered telegraph key and a line briefly interned as a Union spy just as ten- along the tether to the ground—essentially sions gave way to war. the first aerial telecommunications. Lowe Lowe was but one of several who was soon appointed by the president as the attempted the use of balloons in the Civil chief of the new Balloon Corps, a civilian War. With the backing of Smithsonian secre- agency under the Bureau of Topographical tary Joseph Henry, Lowe demonstrated what Engineers of the Army. His balloon was pro- he might accomplish. On 17 June 1861 his viding Army aerial reconnaissance in the Enterprise rose in a tethered experiment near northern Virginia area within days. the White House for President Abraham Lin- On 24 September 1861, from his Union bal- coln and other officials. Lowe and two teleg- loon tethered about 1,000 feet up, Lowe raphers ascended to 500 feet and sent helped to direct artillery fire from Union gun

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batteries at Fort Corcoran (west of Washing- forty patents and worked on mechanical ton DC) on to Confederate lines near Falls refrigeration, among other fields. He moved Church, Virginia. As the gunners on the to southern California in 1887 and focused ground could not see their targets, this was on astronomy; he also operated a hotel, the first such aerial artillery spotting. Lowe bank, and local railroad. He died in January used a white flag in prearranged fashion to 1913 in Pasadena. signal where Union cannon fire was landing. Christopher H. Sterling Lowe developed portable gas generating See also Airships and Balloons; American Civil equipment to ease the use of balloons in the War (1861–1865) field. The Balloon Service of the Army of the Potomac was widely utilized. In his two Sources years in his post as chief of the Balloon Block, Eugene. 1966. Above the Civil War: The Corps, Lowe and others made some 3,000 Story of Thaddeus Lowe. Berkeley, CA: Howell- flights over Confederate territory. With the North Books. Evans, Charles M. 2002. War of the Aeronauts: A relief of George McClellan as Union com- History of Ballooning in the Civil War. Mechan- mander, however, he lost an important sup- icsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. porter. Faced with growing opposition from Haydon, F. Stansbury. 1941. Military Ballooning traditionalists, he left in April 1863, and the During the Early Civil War. Baltimore: Johns Balloon Corps was eliminated in August. Hopkins University Press. Lowe, Thaddeus S. C. 2004. My Balloons in Peace Lowe staged extensive balloon exhibitions and War: Memoirs of Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Chief for large crowds in Philadelphia of the Aeronautic Corps of the Army of the and New York, but soon moved on to United States During the Civil War. Lewiston, other interests. He eventually held about NY: Edward Mellen Press.

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Magic U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson laid down the famous dictum that “Gentlemen The American breaking of Japanese army do not read each other’s mail.” A small Army and naval coded communications during code-breaking operation under Friedman World War II is often given the overall term continued through the 1930s, creating a cadre “Magic,” though in fact that term applied of experienced personnel. Growing Ameri- only to the Japanese machine-generated Pur- can concern about Axis intentions in the late ple code. Code breaking against Japan gen- 1930s slowly increased the support given to erally was referred to as “Ultra” by mid-1943 code-breaking activities. in accordance with the code-breaking treaty The Japanese employed a number of between the United States and Britain. increasingly intricate pen-and-paper codes, Unlike many other wartime coding opera- which were designated by various color tions, the successful efforts against Japanese names by American intelligence, beginning codes were revealed right after the war with Orange in the 1920s, and then Red. Pur- ended, in large part because of congressional ple was a coding machine first utilized by the hearings into the Pearl Harbor attack. Japanese in February 1939 and known Several Americans, working in the State, to them as the Type 97 Alphabetic Typewriter. War, and Navy departments, notably Herbert It used telephone stepping switches, but has Yardley and later William Friedman, had been described as a substantial modification begun working with various decoding and of an Enigma machine given to the Japanese decrypting methodologies during and after by the Germans under terms of the Axis World War I. Yardley’s team enjoyed some treaty. The Japanese also employed a variety success in breaking Japanese codes from the of diplomatic codes, which were sometimes time of the Washington Naval Conference of easier to break. Not all of the fifty-plus codes 1921 and thereafter during the 1920s. But the used by the Japanese before and during State Department’s code-breaking activities World War II were broken, but most informa- were temporarily scuttled after 1929, when tion intercepted and interpreted by the Amer-

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icans was shared with the British from the Unable to get new sets of codebooks to all time of the Pearl Harbor attack. naval commands in advance of their planned In 1940, a team led by Friedman and Frank invasion of the island of Midway in mid- Rowlett reverse-engineered the Japanese Pur- 1942, the Japanese delayed making sched- ple machine, constructing an analog device, uled changes in their administrative code from which others were eventually fabricated. (JN-25 to the Americans) for several months. All consisted of two typewriters connected by This gave American intelligence officers suf- a plug box and telephone stepping switches. ficient time to determine enemy intentions Messages typed in clear language on one for the projected operation, and the Navy typewriter emerged enciphered from the was able to inflict a landmark defeat on the other. Friedman’s version enabled the Amer- Japanese. In a later success due to Magic icans to read some of the Japanese codes intelligence, the Americans in April 1943 nearly in real time (as their intended recipi- deployed fighter planes that intercepted and ents were seeing the same messages). The shot down an aircraft carrying Japanese Japanese diplomatic ultimatum, sent in the Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of Purple code for transmission to the Ameri- the Imperial Japanese Navy. By mid-1945, can government, was received by Japan’s most essential Japanese military codes had embassy in Washington DC on 6–7 Decem- been broken. No complete Japanese-made ber 1941. It was to be handed to Secretary of code machines were captured, however, all State Cordell Hull at a specific time—but having been destroyed prior to the Japanese was already in his hands earlier, thanks to surrender. Highly secret during the war, the this intelligence effort. The message did not Magic operation became generally known make clear, however, the intended target, during the congressional investigations into and Pearl Harbor commanders (who were in the Pearl Harbor attack held in 1946. any case unaware that Japanese codes were Keir B. Sterling being read) were surprised by the Japanese See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code, attack. Codebook; Code Breaking; Friedman, Until early 1942, understaffed American William F. (1891–1969); Midway, Battle of (3– civilian and military intelligence made unco- 6 June 1942); Nebraska Avenue, Washington ordinated efforts to break further Japanese DC; OP-20-G; Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); Safford, Laurance F. (1890–1973); Signals diplomatic and naval codes, but Army and Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra; Yardley, Herbert Navy rivalry, and the resulting reluctance to O. (1889–1958) share information, greatly hindered code and cipher work. Not until just after Pearl Sources Harbor did both services finally allocate suf- Department of Defense. 1978. The “Magic” Background of Pearl Harbor. 7 vols. Washing- ficient personnel to this activity. Ordinarily, ton, DC: Government Printing Office. the Japanese changed details of their codes Lewin, Ronald. 1982. The American Magic: Codes, monthly to forestall decryption, but for a Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan. New York: variety of reasons (chiefly the difficulty of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. distributing new code instructions to their Rowlett, Frank B. 1998. The Story of Magic: expanding empire) did not always follow Memoirs of an American Cryptological Pioneer. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. this policy. Spector, Ronald H., ed. 1988. Listening to the Two examples demonstrate the military Enemy: Key Documents on the Role of impact of the breaking of Japanese codes. Communications Intelligence in the War

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with Japan. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly took, at huge effort and expense, to develop Resources Inc. an invincible armored wall of defense to pre- vent further incursions. The fortifications were especially necessary, it was argued, as Maginot Line French manpower fell behind that of Ger- many due to losses in World War I. Andre From 1929 to the late 1930s, France con- Maginot (1877–1932), like most of his con- structed an extensive series of largely under- temporaries, had served and been wounded ground defense lines facing Germany in the on the Western Front in World War I. By the north and Italy in the south. This system of late 1920s he had become minister of war in fortresses featured advanced telephone, France and, reading the national mood, radio, and acoustic communications links. spearheaded the planning, funding, and ini- Having been invaded by Germany twice tial construction of the defense line that in the previous sixty years, France under- would bear his name after his death. The

This rather fanciful illustration demonstrates the complexity of the Maginot Line fortifications. Built in the 1930s by France along its borders with Germany and Italy, communication within and among the many underground fortresses used telegraph, telephone, and radio links. (Library of Congress)

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Maginot Line consisted of a series of izontally along the external face of the fortresses (ouvrage), some built around ouvrage entrance, and were thus vulnerable artillery and others around infantry, with to attack. Finally, the Maginot Line’s radio smaller defensive bunkers in between—it system transmitters, which ranged from 50 was not a line, per se, but defense in depth to 250 watts, only serviced a range of about along the French border. Individual gar- 15 miles. risons ranged from a few dozen to as many In May and June 1940, Maginot fortresses as 1,200 men. successfully resisted frontal (and some air) Each Maginot unit was tied to all the oth- attacks from both the Germans and Italians, ers as well as central command by wired but were eventually encircled from the rear telephone, the cable facilities for which were as France fell. But at no time did the internal duplicated and also buried to protect against communication links within individual artillery or air attack. Some of the artillery fortresses fail, and most interline communi- ouvrage had numerous separate artillery cations remained intact as well. blocs, or positions, covering an extensive Christopher H. Sterling area, and all were tied to a central command See also Atlantic Wall; France: Army; post by telephone. Each command post fea- Underground Communication Centers tured telephone switchboards that were operated with electricity generated within Sources each fort. Kaufmann, J. E., and H. W. Kaufmann. 1997. The For internal communications, individual Maginot Line: None Shall Pass. Westport, CT: Praeger. observation sites communicated with the Kemp, Anthony. 1982. The Maginot Line: command center using voice tubes or tele- Myth & Reality. Briarcliff Manor, NY: phone. In turn, the command center sent Stein & Day. orders by use of bells and lights as indicators, Mary, Jean-Yves. 1980. “Les Transmissions.” In and the movement of indicator needles on La Ligne Maginot, 150–155. Cuneo, Italy: SERCAP. circular dials. These were essentially electrical Mary, Jean-Yves, and Alain Hohnadel. 2001. order transmitters, allowing visual confirma- “Les Transmissions.” In Hommes et Ouvrages tion of commands despite the din of gunfire, de la Ligne Maginot, Tome 2, 120–129. Paris: which might impede telephone messages. L’encyclopédie de l’Armée Française— Optical telegraphy (mirrors, lights, and the Editions Histoire et Collections. like) could also be employed from one exter- Rowe, Vivian. 1959. The Great Wall of France: The Triumph of the Maginot Line. London: nal observation point to another. Study had Putnam. begun as to whether these should be supple- Truttmann, Philippe. 1987. “Transmissions.” mented or replaced by infrared systems when In La Muraille de France, 409–414. Thionville, the Germans attacked in May 1940. France: Gerard Klopp. Radio telegraphy served only as an alter- nate mode of communication as French wireless technology lagged that of other Maori Signaling countries and radio generally was in the nascent stages of its development. Further, The Maori (indigenous people) of what is radio messages would have to be enci- now New Zealand developed a very sophis- phered, which would delay communication, ticated system of different types of wartime and radio antennas had to be stretched hor- signaling.

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Large battle groups of warriors were con- misunderstanding of communications high- trolled by the chief in the field by use of a lights the need for all communicators to unique signaling device. The Maori sling (he understand their medium and exploit it to its kotaha) had a dual role of being both a fullest potential. weapon and a communicator. A number of Cliff Lord darts were provided, which had either fire See also Ancient Signals; Music Signals; Native bundles or feathers mounted at the top. American Signaling When shot into the air they signaled for war- riors to advance to left or right or to with- draw. Some darts used fire to indicate a change of direction. In effect each was a pre- Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937) arranged command. It took many years to learn to use the sling and prepare the darts, Innovator of the world’s first successful and only a few had that honor. wireless telegraph system, Marconi is often Other forms of signaling in the field were considered the father of the radio industry. provided by the use of the tewha tewha, a His wireless firms in Britain (founded 1897) battleaxe-like weapon, that could also indi- and the United States (1899) played central cate a change of direction by the chief. The roles in introducing naval and military radio quarter-staff (taiaha) was used for signaling early in the twentieth century. over a distance. Movement of the staff indi- Born in Bologna, Italy, on 25 April 1874, cated to which tribe the warrior belonged. Marconi began experimenting with wireless Fixed communication was practiced in a on his father’s estate two decades later. Elic- number of ways. The Maori developed long- iting little interest from Italian naval author- distance communication by using the ities, he traveled to England in 1896 to resources available. These included the pahu, experiment further and develop a wireless a large wooden gong, that was located on business. The British Post Office, Admiralty, what is now the One Tree Hill area of Auck- and army were all soon interested and land. The pahu was reputed to be audible involved in perfecting the system, transmit- over most of the Auckland isthmus. The pu ting wireless telegraph signals over ever- kaea was a form of Alpine horn. Fire and greater distances over both land and water. smoke were also used, and with the arrival Marconi received a Morse code signal of the of European settlers, cow horns came into letter “S” sent across the Atlantic in late 1901. use as well. Another method of communicat- Marconi wireless sets were used by the ing was to simply shout between fortifica- British army (briefly) and Royal Navy (more tions or from cliff top to cliff top. This was successfully) as early as the Boer War. Some known as pari karangaranga. were used by the Japanese navy in the The native trumpet shell was the pu tara, Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, a con- or war trumpet. This prized shell was used tributing factor in its eventual victory. The by iwi (tribes) to issue a challenge to a poten- number of British naval ships equipped with tial enemy. If the challenge was answered wireless expanded to 42 by late 1900, to 80 by then battle would ensue. Explorer Abel Tas- 1905, and to 435 by the eve of World War I. man unwittingly accepted such a call to bat- By 1913, Marconi had also established an tle when he first heard the challenge, and extensive system of navy shore wireless ordered his sailors to trumpet a reply. This transmitters and direction-finding stations.

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Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi poses with some of the equipment that formed an early version of his wireless system. Marconi equipment was furnished to the Royal Navy and other forces in both world wars. (Library of Congress)

The Admiralty took control of the Marconi sets were replacing crystal-driven equip- factory on the outbreak of World War I in ment. Development of lighter aircraft radios August 1914. Marconi himself was commis- (down to 20 pounds by late 1915) from Mar- sioned in the Italian army during the war, coni greatly aided artillery spotting from the and helped develop low-frequency radio air. During 1916 Marconi-built vacuum tube facilities that aided the Italian navy’s opera- radios began to equip the Royal Navy and tions. His firm operated extensive training were soon fitted in British airships. schools for the Admiralty and army, while After the war, Marconi conducted exten- the Royal Flying Corps took over Marconi’s sive experiments with shortwave and helped Brooklands experimental site. The British establish international radio links using the Expeditionary Force landed in France with technology. Many were done on his yacht only one mobile transmitter, but had ten Elettra, purchased in 1919. Long enamored of units within a month. Marconi’s Chelmsford Mussolini, he joined the Fascist Party in works developed radio links for British 1923, and in 1930 he became a part of headquarters to use on the stabilized West- the Fascist Grand Council. Two years later ern Front by 1915. Vacuum tube–powered he returned permanently to Italy. From his

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yacht he conducted microwave experiments man invasion of France in September 1914. and some work with the principles of radar. While the Germans guarded their left flank In declining health for several years, he died with two weak armies, five larger German on 20 July 1937 in Rome. armies on the right flank swept through Bel- Even then increasing orders for the com- gium and northern France. They quickly ing war were flowing to the Marconi Com- shattered the French armies and the British pany, which developed communication and Expeditionary Force (BEF), and by 1 Sep- navigation equipment for all three British tember the Germans were within 30 miles of service arms. Unlike in World War I, how- Paris. Fortunately for the Allies, extended ever, Marconi was not alone in the British logistics, inadequate command and control, market. Considerable emergency work was and human exhaustion affected German accomplished in 1939–1940 for the British operations greatly. Expeditionary Force in France. By 1943, a A significant element in the eventual fail- quarter of company manufacturing capacity ure of the German offensive was inadequate was devoted to radio needs of the Royal Air communications systems that failed to pro- Force and another 30 percent served Royal vide German Chief of Staff Helmut von Navy requirements. That year alone, nearly Moltke with timely or accurate information 11,000 transmitters and 15,000 receivers were from the front. During the operations, Moltke manufactured. remained at his headquarters in Luxembourg Christopher H. Sterling more than 200 miles away. He thus lost touch See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; with his commanders, leading to German Jackson, Henry B. (1885–1929); Radio; failure to exploit operational opportunities Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 May 1905); United at decisive points on the battlefield. In con- Kingdom: Royal Navy trast French commander General Joseph Jof- fre maintained good communications with Sources his commanders, primarily through direct Baker, W. J. 1971. A History of the Marconi Company. New York: St. Martin’s Press. personal visits and constant movement to Dunlap, Orrin E. 1937. Marconi: The Man and His critical areas of the battle as he sought an op - Wireless. New York: Macmillan (reprinted by portunity for a counterattack along the Arno Press, 1971). Somme-Verdun line. Godwin, George. 1946. Marconi: A War Record. Many of the problems with German com- London: Chatto & Windus. munications began with inadequate plan- Jolly, W. P. 1972. Marconi. New York: Stein & Day. ning because the chief of the field telegraph Vyvyan, R. N. 1933. Wireless Over Thirty Years. service was not included in preparations for London: Routledge (reprinted by EP Publish- the advance. Extensive secrecy regarding the ing, 1974, as Marconi and Wireless). pending violation of Belgian neutrality made it impossible to preplan communications through the country. The Germans had also Marne, Battle of (September 1914) resolved to rely on telephone lines and radio instead of the telegraph, though forward The first Battle of the Marne was a series of units were not told and thus destroyed much engagements fought along the Marne River of the wire communication infrastructure of between Paris and Verdun during the Ger- Belgium and France.

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As the German right wing advanced strategic victory for the Allies and was the across Belgium, a gap opened between the closest the Germans ever came to victory. It First and Second armies because the aggres- also ended all the belligerents’ hopes for the sive First Army commander ordered a move short war their prewar plans had projected. east of Paris to destroy the flank of the Steven J. Rauch retreating French army. This moved the First See also France: Army; Germany: Army; World Army far ahead of other German armies, War I exposing their right flank to the French. Because of the lag in communications, Sources Moltke ordered the First Army to guard the Blond, Georges. 1966. The Marne. Harrisburg, flank of the Second. First Army shifted south PA: Stackpole Books. David, Daniel. 1987. The 1914 Campaign. New of the Marne River on 4 September. York: Military Press. The Allies identified the exposed German Evans, Paul W. 1935. “Strategic Signal flank using air reconnaissance and radio Communications—A Study Based upon the intercepts. The military governor of Paris Operations of the German Signal Corps ordered a French army to attack the exposed During the March on Paris in 1914.” Signal Corps Bulletin 82 (January–February): 24–58. enemy flank on 5 September with more than Schniewindt, Lt. Gen. 1933. “Signal Communi- 150,000 men. First Army then moved away cation Between the Headquarters Staffs from Second Army as it turned to deal with During the Warfare of Movement in 1914.” this threat, which opened a gap of almost 30 Signal Corps Bulletin 74 (September– miles between the two German forces. The October): 1–26. remaining French armies held the line to the east, and the battle along the Marne raged for three days. Because of his firsthand Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald knowledge of the situation, Joffre identified (1881–1971) and exploited the gap between the German armies. On 9 September the BEF crossed the Joseph Mauborgne served as chief signal Marne and moved unopposed into the gap. officer and was a key figure in the early Frustrated by poor communications, development of the U.S. Army’s signals Moltke sent a general staff officer forward on intelligence capabilities. 8 September to coordinate the actions of his Mauborgne was born on 26 February 1881 army commanders. He arrived at Second in New York City. A graduate of the College Army headquarters just as that unit’s flank of St. Francis Xavier in New York (1901), he was being turned by the French while the entered the Army as an infantry officer in BEF threatened First Army’s rear. In Moltke’s 1903. A student at the Army Signal School name, he ordered First Army to withdraw or (1909–1910), he was among the first to exper- risk envelopment. From 10–12 September iment with radio to and from airplanes in the Germans conducted a 40-mile fighting 1912–1914. In 1914, he was the first to solve withdrawal to the Aisne River, where they the Playfair complex field cipher system then halted. Soon both exhausted armies dug used by the British. trenches and extended their front from Detailed to the Army Signal Corps in 1916, Switzerland to the English Channel. Mauborgne worked on eliminating radio sta- The Battle of the Marne proved to be one of tic during World War I. He also developed the most decisive in military history. It was a the first theoretically unbreakable cipher and

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promoted use of an automatic cipher correspondence courses, and added more machine. Named chief of the Signal Corps’ intercept facilities. He continued to provide Research and Engineering Division during strong encouragement to those working in World War I, he transferred to the Signal this field. When, in September 1940, Frank A. Corps (1920) and directed a signal laboratory Rowlett and other SIS operatives broke the at the National Bureau of Standards from Japanese Purple code after eighteen months 1923 to 1927. He served as a technical adviser of effort, Mauborgne dubbed Rowlett and at several international communications con- his associates “magicians” and the product ferences. He was a graduate of the Army War of their decryptions as “Magic.” College in 1932, and in 1934 was assigned to Long before Mauborgne took office as chief, San Francisco as a signal officer. Mauborgne however, the Army Air Corps contended that did pioneering work in his quarters during the Signal Corps was not moving fast enough off-duty hours, seeking foreign radio trans- to meet its various requirements, including missions on his radio, attempting to deter- improved communications and detection mine where they came from and with whom capabilities such as radar. In addition, the senders were communicating. Promoted ground troops needed long-range radios, to colonel in 1934, Mauborgne directed the particularly for vehicles. Some felt the Signal Aircraft Radio Laboratory in 1936–1937. Corps was not doing enough to ensure com- Promoted to major general and appointed munications preparedness in the event of chief signal officer in October 1937, Mau - American involvement in the war in Europe. borgne urged expansion of the Signal Corps These concerns may have contributed to his telegraph system. He contended that military termination as chief signal officer in mid- “double tracking” with commercial firms August 1941, six weeks ahead of schedule, would be essential in meeting in creased when Mauborgne was retired at the direc- wartime service demands. He opposed the tion of Army Chief of Staff George Marshall. single national telegraph company, which He died in Little Silver, New Jersey, on 5 Congress mandated in 1943. Mauborgne June 1971. began converting Signal Corps administrative Keir B. Sterling offices from telegraph to teletype. By 1939, he See also Army Signal Corps; Magic; Rowlett, was receptive to the idea that Army commu- Frank B. (1908–1998); Signals Intelligence nications systems should eventually switch (SIGINT) from AM to the newly developed FM, espe- cially for communication with aircraft. Un- Sources fortunately, early military tests of FM Alvarez, David. 2000. Secret Messages: Codebreak- ing and American Diplomacy, 1930–1945. transmission proved inconclusive, and the Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. civilian radio industry seemed uninterested in Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The History its use. As General Electric had not supplied of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan. the necessary equipment before Pearl Har- Raines, Rebecca R. 1996. Getting the Message bor, the Army relied on AM systems early in Through: A Branch History of the US Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Center of World War II. Military History. Mauborgne was a highly capable cryptol- Terrett, Dulany. 1956. The United States Army in ogist who organized the Signal Intelligence World War II: The Technical Services. The Signal Service (SIS), gave it a substantial budget, Corps: The Emergency (to December, 1941). expanded its operations and staff, started

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Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of March 1866. He was a common soldier who Military History. performed his duty faithfully and effectively and was the first Signal Corps soldier to receive the Medal of Honor. Medal of Honor Winners, Signal Corps Will Croft Barnes (1882) Will Barnes enlisted in the Signal Corps in During U.S. Army Signal Corps history, five 1879 for five years, and attended signal train- individuals have been recognized for acts of ing at Fort Whipple, Virginia, where he stud- personal bravery or sacrifice above and ied flag, torch, and telegraph signaling. In beyond the call of duty through award of the December 1879, Barnes was assigned to Fort Medal of Honor. This is the highest Ameri- Apache, Arizona, as the post telegrapher and can military award and, since its inception in weather observer. During 1881 Barnes sent 1862, has been awarded to approximately more than 4,000 messages and four daily 3,400 recipients out of the millions who have meteorology reports to the Office of the served in the U.S. armed forces. Chief Signal Officer in Washington DC. Trou- ble with Apache Indians near the fort in late Morgan D. Lane (1866) August 1881 set the stage for Barnes to Morgan Lane enlisted in August 1862 in a demonstrate his courage. When an Apache Michigan cavalry regiment and transferred medicine man began predicting the defeat of to the newly authorized Signal Corps in the white men and the return of Indians to April 1864. He served at the 5th Corps head- power, conflict erupted. Fort Apache’s com- quarters as an orderly to Lieutenant P. H. mander set out with 117 men to arrest the Niles, one of the corps signal officers. Lane Indian leader, and Barnes remained behind achieved recognition in April 1865 at at the fort with less than 70 other soldiers Jetersville, Virginia, midway between Peters- and civilians, who had been cut off from burg and Appomattox, during the Union wire communication by the Indians. Uncer- pursuit of General Robert E. Lee’s Confeder- tain about the status of the expedition, ate Army. Confederate naval forces on the Barnes volunteered to climb a 2,000-foot Appomattox River also attempted to escape mesa and use his signal flags to alert the and burned the CSS Nansemond, an 80-ton post to any threatening Indian activity. Dur- wooden steamer on 4 April. Lane, Niles, and ing further operations in September, Barnes an engineer captain were manning a small went out with an armed escort to repair the signal station atop a house in Jetersville telegraph line. Barnes’s abilities as a soldier when they observed and captured the escap- and signalman impressed his superiors for ing Confederate sailors. Lane seized the col- being “prompt and unhesitating in the dis- ors of the Nanesmond from the escaping charge of all duties assigned to him, more captain. During the Civil War, capturing an than once being exposed to great danger.” enemy organization’s colors was deemed a On 8 November 1882, General William T. valiant act, because they were defended to Sherman, commanding general of the Army, the death and reflected the nature of per- approved award of the Medal of Honor, sonal close combat. The War Department which then-Sergeant Barnes received the fol- awarded the Medal of Honor to Lane on 16 lowing spring at Fort Apache.

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Charles E. Kilbourne, Jr. (1905) Philippines, on 7 March 1906 he distin- Charles Kilbourne, Jr., was the only signal guished himself at Mount Bud-Dajo, where, officer to win the Medal of Honor while per- “while gallantly raising himself up to gain a forming a combat communications mission. foothold to climb up in advance of the others, A Signal Corps officer’s son, Kilbourne he was severely wounded. This especially became an observer with the U.S. Weather brave action . . . distinguished his conduct Bureau until the war with Spain in 1898, above that of his comrades.” Johnston when he joined the Volunteer Signal Corps, received the Medal of Honor four years later. an expansion of the regular corps assigned to Camp Gordon Johnston, a 155,000-acre provide tactical communications to the World War II training installation (1942–1946) rapidly expanding Army. He shipped out to in coastal Franklin County, Florida, was the Philippines, where he participated in the named for him and served as an amphibious- campaign against Spanish forces resulting in warfare training center. the seizure of Manila. When the Philippine Insurrection began in February 1899, Kil- Adolphus W. Greely (1935) bourne earned a place in history and the Adolphus Greely, who served most of his Medal of Honor for his actions, where long Army career in the Signal Corps, was “Within . . . 250 yards of the enemy and in the unique in that his Medal of Honor was face of rapid fire, he climbed a telegraph pole awarded by special act of Congress for ser- at the east end of Paco Bridge and, in full vice, joining the elite ranks of Richard Byrd, view of the enemy, coolly and carefully Floyd Bennett, and Charles Lindbergh as the repaired a broken telegraph wire, thereby re- only people to receive a Medal of Honor as establishing telegraphic communication to a “special legislation” award. After Civil War the front.” Kilbourne later applied for and service, in 1867 he was detailed to the Signal was accepted in the Regular Army as an Corps and served during the campaign infantry officer, eventually transferring to the against the Cheyenne Indians. In 1870 he artillery. During World War I he served as the was assigned to Washington DC to help chief of staff of the 89th Infantry Division, Colonel Albert Myer organize the meteoro- and, though wounded by a mortar shell, his logical service. In March 1887, President performance earned him the Distinguished Grover Cleveland jumped Greely from cap- Service Cross. In October 1918, he earned the tain to brigadier general and appointed him Distinguished Service Medal, making him chief signal officer, a post he held for nine- the only soldier at that time to hold the teen years. He fought numerous battles to nation’s three highest military awards. save the Signal Corps’ existence. Under Greely’s tenure the Signal Corps was a Gordon Johnston (1910) leader in technological innovation, including Gordon Johnston, the son of a Confederate use of wireless telegraphy, the airplane, the general, began his military service as an automobile, and other modern devices. enlisted man during the Spanish-American Greely was retired for age in 1908, and on his War, first in Cuba and eventually in the ninety-first birthday (27 March 1935), he was Philippines, where he won a Distinguished presented with a special Medal of Honor Service Cross while fighting insurgents in “for his life of splendid public service.” 1902. During a second tour of duty in the Steven J. Rauch

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See also Army Signal Corps; Greely, Adolphus cated using a curved animal horn, and the W. (1844–1935); Spanish-American War drum communicated marching pace. (1898) Flags were also an important part of mili- Sources tary communication. The banner, gonfanon, Brown, J. Willard. 1896. The Signal Corps, USA in pennon, and standard are just a few exam- the War of the Rebellion. Boston: U.S. Veteran ples, and each type had its own particular Signal Corps Association (reprinted by Arno use. The banner identified an individual, Press, 1974). while the standard was used as the rallying Command Historian Office. 1990. Signal Corps Recipients of the Medal of Honor. Fort Gordon, point for troops in battle. The gonfanon, like GA: U.S. Army Signal Center. the pennon, was carried at the head of a lance Lang, George, et. al. 1995. Medal of Honor Recipi- and served to identify the knight. During the ents: 1863–1994. New York: Facts on File. twelfth century, crusaders bearing the flag Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the with the cross of St. George communicated Message Through: A Branch History of the US Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: US country of origin as well as religion. Army Center of Military History. Information concerning the enemy’s posi- tion could come from an unexpected source. A civilian, townsperson, or distraught Medieval Military Signaling enemy soldier was often willing to betray his (500–1500 CE) army. Therefore a messenger was never to be ignored. Messengers bringing good news Military communication during the medie - were often well rewarded. In twelfth- val period was accomplished by foot courier, century England, Henry II’s messenger mounted courier, pigeon, identifying banner, brought news that the invading king of Scot- and music signals. Ships communicated land had been captured. Henry promptly using flags, light, or their sails. Use of mili- awarded the messenger with an estate in tary communication was vital in order to Norfolk. Those bearing bad news sometimes facilitate and coordinate appropriate move- did not fare well. ment of armed forces, including infantry, The need for rapid communication be- cavalry, and naval forces. tween armies or kingdoms gave rise to use of It was easier to get a messenger into a mounted couriers. The Battle of Poitiers in besieged town or castle than for the besieged 732 was among the first in Europe to be to dispatch a messenger out, as those under fought by cavalry, with the subsequent tra- attack were also under constant surveillance jectory in the use of mounted couriers. by their enemies. Vital military messages In the late twelfth century, Genghis Khan were often written using encryption or using used homing pigeons as couriers, establish- a substance visible only when moistened ing pigeon messenger posts and relay sites and held to a fire. Messages were also hid- from his Mongol capital, extending to den in the messenger’s food, written in the Europe and Asia. A pigeon carried messages scabbard of a sword, concealed in the collar up to a speed of 50 miles per hour and flew of the messenger’s dog, or hidden on the over mountains, rivers, and enemy territory, messenger’s person. while a mounted courier could only travel a On the battlefield, music became an few miles per hour. Using pigeons as mes- important ally. Battle signals were communi- sengers, Genghis Khan was able to send

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expedited commands to his various armies raids in the fall of 1940 made imperative the and distant sovereignties. relocation of navy signals training and sev- Medieval ships, like the carrack and eral related functions (the navigators, for smaller caravel, used flag and lantern com- example, moved to Southwick House). A munication. A ship flew its nation’s flag to brief survey of options led to the privately convey identity, and pennants were flown owned Leydene House (completed in 1924, from the mastheads and yardarms. Lantern with its lush gardens finished in 1926), near signals were also transmitted, received, and East Meon, in Hampshire, northwest of understood. In the sixteenth century, codes Portsmouth. The stately home was requisi- based on the position and number of lights, tioned by the government and on 16 August flags, and cannon shots were developed. 1941 was formally commissioned as HMS Kathleen Hitt Mercury. See also Ancient Signals; Artillery/Gunfire; Some 300 ratings (enlisted personnel) Couriers; Flags; Horses and Mules; Lights assigned for training in modes of communi- and Beacons; Music Signals; Pigeons cations were soon accommodated in rows of tents until a row of Nissen hut barracks could Sources be constructed. A host of other temporary de Joinville, Jean and Geffroy de Villehardouin. buildings soon cluttered the grounds. More 1963. Chronicles of the Crusades. Baltimore: Penguin Books. than a thousand men—and sometimes twice Machiavelli, Niccolo. 2001. The Art of War. 2nd that—were being trained at any one time. ed. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo. After the war, Leydene House and about Oman, C. W. C., and John H. Beeler, eds. 1953. 160 surrounding acres were purchased by The Art of War in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: the government so that signals training Cornell University Press. could continue. Remaining parts of the large Poole, Austin Lane. 1951. Doomsday Book to Magna Carta. Oxford: Clarendon Press. estate were sold to tenant farmers, among others. Construction of training and activi- ties buildings continued in the postwar Mercury, HMS years, considerably extending the facility’s capabilities. A land-based series of buildings rather than In 1948 the training establishment was a ship, HMS Mercury has served from 1941 renamed the Admiralty Signal and Radar as the center of British Royal Navy signals Establishment (ASRE), by which time the and communications training. The name first buildings on the new site at Portsdown derived from the twelfth ship of the name, a had been completed. Moves to Portsdown cruiser launched in 1878, which in 1903 took place progressively over the next ten became the floating school to teach naviga- years. ASRE was again renamed, becoming tion. The school moved ashore (though the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establish- maintaining the ship’s name) to a navigation ment, and eventually it became the Admi- school at the old Naval College in Ports- ralty Research Establishment, part of the mouth, which opened in 1906. Defence Research Agency. After years of operation at the Portsmouth Christopher H. Sterling Navy Yard, wartime space pressure and the increasing intensity of enemy bombing See also United Kingdom: Royal Navy

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Sources complicated storage and signaling equip- Kent, Barrie. 1993. Signal! A History of Signalling ment, it failed to gain widespread accep- in the Royal Navy, 122–125, 317–330. tance. JANET consisted of a full duplex Clanfield, UK: Hyden House. Royal Naval Communications Association. circuit and a communication path of more Home page. [Online information; retrieved than 1,000 km with a data rate of thirty-four May 2004.] http://www.rnca.org.uk/ words per minute. frameindex.htm. The first operational military MBC was Communications by Meteor Trails (COMET), implemented by the North Atlantic Treaty Meteor Burst Communications Organization’s Supreme Headquarters Allied (MBC) Powers Europe in 1965. COMET operated between stations in the Netherlands, France, Meteor burst communications (MBC)—also United Kingdom, Italy, West Germany, and known as meteor scatter—systems use the Norway. The system was capable of main- ionized trails of the small particles entering taining from two to eight sixty-words-per- the earth’s atmosphere to reflect radio waves minute teletype circuits, depending on the between stations. Various studies in the amount of meteor activity. 1940s and 1950s examined different methods The introduction of satellite communica- that might be used to establish an effective tions in the late 1960s reduced interest in telecommunications system. MBC. However, when the many vulnerabil- The MBC system works by transmitting ities of satellite communications were recog- packets of digitized information when a nized and the number of satellites was found meteor trail is available. The time available for insufficient to meet requirements, interest in transmission of a signal is dependent on the MBC returned. size and type of meteor trail, which may last Two large civilian systems, the Snow Pack from a few milliseconds to a few seconds. Telemetry System (SNOTEL) and the Early experiments were not entirely success- Alaskan Meteor Burst Communications Sys- ful, but the development of high-speed data tem (AMBCS) became operational in 1978 transmission and data compression technolo- and 1977, respectively. The SNOTEL system gies allows the transmission of bursts of infor- consists of two master stations and more mation at high data rates. A complete than 500 remote stations located in nearly message might require the transmission of a inaccessible sites in ten Western states. The number of packets spread over a period of remote sites are solar powered and transmit time. After the complete message is transmit- reports on snow pack, precipitation, and ted, it is reassembled by equipment at the temperature every twenty-four hours. The receiving station. Signals propagated by an AMBCS is used by five federal agencies to MBC system have a low probability of inter- gather information from remote areas of ception and detection and are difficult to jam Alaska. Both the SNOTEL and the AMBCS because of the burst mode of transmission, demonstrate that large MBC systems are not the random nature of the communication, only feasible but also practical. and the small signal footprint. The U.S. Air Force’s Alaskan Air Com- The Canadians implemented their version mand MBC became operational in the mid- of an MBC system, JANET, in 1952. JANET 1980s. The Air Force system was used as a operated through the decade, but because of backup communications system between the

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Regional Operations Center and thirteen operation. Signal units included three field long-range radar sites throughout Alaska. signal companies and the First Aero The system was able to send data in suffi- Squadron, with a total of eighteen officers cient quantity to maintain a real-time radar and 284 men. They employed wire and wire- display. less wagons, wireless sets, telegraphs, tele- Tommy R. Young II phones, switchboards, cameras, and pigeons. See also Communication Satellites; North Early in the campaign, two wireless (radio) Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) wagon sets were in service—one at Colum- Communications & Information Systems bus and the other at Colonia Dublan, about Agency 125 miles from Columbus. The wireless Sources equipment was so large and heavy, however, Jernovics, John P. 1990. “Meteor Burst that it could not keep pace with the quickly Communications: An Additional Means of advancing cavalry columns, and the uncer- Long-Haul Communications.” [Online tainty of radio contact failed to satisfy com- article; retrieved January 2007.] http:// manders in the field. As a result almost all www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/ messages were sent via wire. report/1990/JJP.htm. Schilling, Donald L. 1993. Meteor Burst Pershing’s expedition was notable for its Communications: Theory and Practice. New long lines of communication wire. As troops York: Wiley. moved deeper into Mexico, wire was laid from the tailboards of wagons, and Pershing was never out of communication with his Mexican Punitive Expedition base at Columbus, an eventual distance of (1916–1917) almost 400 miles. At first only a single bare wire was laid, as the signal units lacked insu- In March 1916 a Mexican guerrilla force led lated wire. The ground was dry sand, and by Pancho Villa raided the border town of when it rained the wire shorted out. Even Columbus, New Mexico, and inflicted two morning dew shorted the circuit until sun- dozen American casualties and thousands rise, when heat burned away the moisture. of dollars of property damage. In response to After insulated wire was obtained, connec- this terrorist act, President Woodrow Wilson tion was still an issue due to breakage by ani- ordered mobilization of forces along the bor- mals and sabotage by enemy guerrillas. To der and directed Brigadier General John J. resolve that problem, maintenance stations Pershing to lead a punitive expedition into were established at 25-mile intervals along northern Mexico to capture Villa. This inva- the line. Signalmen traveled on horseback sion of Mexico was not welcomed, and Per- and light motor trucks to repair any breaks. shing’s force of 12,000 men was soon fighting A test message was sent every ten minutes, both the Mexican army and Villa’s guerrilla and trucks were ready to make needed forces. During the expedition, the Americans repairs should the test fail. called on the latest technological advance- The unique contribution of this expedition ments, including radios, motor vehicles, and was the first American use of airplanes to airplanes, all employed in combat for the support military operations. The mission of first time by the U.S. Army. the First Aero Squadron was to carry mes- Columbus became the center for com- sages and conduct reconnaissance and obser- mand, control, and communications for the vation flights. It also carried mail for the

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troops from Columbus to Pershing’s head- has tended to curtail both the growth and quarters in the field. Flying was dangerous use of microwave relays. While microwaves due to the mountains and wind currents, make reliable and fast mobile communica- which caused several accidents and dam- tions possible (sometimes transmitted and aged aircraft. Pershing often employed the received via satellite), this capability has led aircraft to carry messages directly back to directly to microwave espionage, where sig- his headquarters or to other commanders in nals are intercepted and decoded. the months of frustrating effort to capture Usefulness of shortwaves for radio com- the elusive Villa. However, by April 1916 munication made researchers curious about most of the First Aero Squadron was used up what awaited them at wavelengths shorter and only two aircraft were left in service. than 10 meters (30 feet) and higher in fre- Unable to capture Villa and hoping to avoid quency than 30 MHz. Throughout the 1930s, a general war with Mexico, Pershing’s puni- scientists and engineers began experiments tive expedition returned to the United States with what they called “ultra-short waves” in February 1917—just months before the or “microwaves.” Because there were then no country entered World War I. obvious commercial applications for such Steven J. Rauch waves, experiments were generally restricted See also Airplanes; Army Signal Corps; Field to laboratories. The U.S. Navy installed its Wire and Cable; Radio; Telegraph first experimental microwave communica- tion system in 1937 on the destroyer USS Sources Leary. Mason, Herbert M. 1970. The Great Pursuit. New During World War II extensive research on York: Random House. search radar moved the technology forward Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the US substantially. As the war ground to a close, Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Center of Philco, RCA, Raytheon, and Westinghouse Military History. all began to exploit the technology further for both civilian and military needs. Military microwave applications focused on radar, Microwave both mobile and fixed. Other important applications included electronic countermea- Microwaves are high-frequency radio waves sures and (by the 1990s) the global position- used for point-to-point and omnidirectional ing system (GPS). communication of audio, data, and video Over the final two decades of the twenti- signals, both on land and to and from sat - eth century, military needs substantially ellites. Microwave frequencies (generally drove microwave and millimeter-wave tech- 1–30 GHz) require direct line of sight to oper- nology in the United States. The highly suc- ate; obstructions can distort or block the cessful $90-million-a-year Microwave and signal. Millimeter-Wave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) Microwave links offer several advantages, program was a major source of research and countervailing drawbacks. Though tra- funds, but other significant research and ditionally such radio links were less expen- development programs included funding sive than buried or aerial cable lines, the for microwave tubes. The three-service growth of high-capacity fiber optic networks MIMIC program pushed the frontiers of

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microwave integrated-circuit technology, O’Neill, E. F., ed. 1985. “Ultrahigh Frequencies, focusing on a comprehensive capability for Microwaves, and Radio Relays.” In A design, manufacture, and testing. The pro- History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Transmission Technology gram successfully transformed many mili- (1925–1975), 141–192. New York: AT&T tary systems from tubes to solid state and Bell Laboratories. from hybrids to monolithic microwave inte- grated circuits. Budget constraints after 2000 began to impinge on this work, forcing more Midway, Battle of (3–6 June 1942) adaption of commercial systems. High-powered microwave (HPM) bombs The three-day Battle of Midway was a deci- were an option under consideration early in sive turning point in the Pacific conflict with the twenty-first century for ruining enemy Japan and was World War II’s most impor- electronic components and communication tant naval battle. Midway’s result was deter- without harming military personnel. By mined largely by signals intelligence, which sending out a microwave pulse, HPM bombs revealed Japanese plans to the U.S. Navy. fry the electrical innards of electrical equip- After devastating the U.S. Pacific Fleet in ment and communication links, including its December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Japan command-and-control systems. Such de- embarked on a lightning campaign to con- vices can be guided by central controllers quer the western Pacific and its many (only 10 percent of bombs in the 1990–1991 islands. The primary threat to that campaign Gulf War were so controlled—by the 2003 was the American aircraft carriers, none of Iraq War, some 80 percent were). which had been at Pearl Harbor. When its Christopher H. Sterling confidence was shaken by a carrier-borne See also Communication Satellites; Electro- U.S. bombing attack (the Doolittle Raid) magnetic Pulse (EMP); Electronic against Tokyo on 18 April 1942, Japan initi- Countermeasures/Electronic Warfare ated plans to lure the American carriers into (ECM/EW); Fiber Optics; Global Positioning a decisive engagement that would destroy System (GPS); Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq them. The Battle of the Coral Sea in early War (2003–Present); Solid State Electronics May bloodied both the Japanese and Amer- Sources ican fleets (each lost a carrier), and Japanese Cantelon, Philip L. 1993. “The Promise of invasion forces heading for Port Moresby, Microwaves.” In The History of MCI: The Early New Guinea, were turned back. Against that Years, 1968–1988, appendix A, 508–524. American strategic victory, the Japanese Dallas: Heritage Press. Imperial Navy next resolved to seize the Glasser, Lance A. n.d. “Breakthroughs in Affordability of Military Microwave Sys - American-held Midway Island, the western- tems.” Washington, DC: Defense Advanced most part of the Hawaiian chain and site of Research Projects Agency. http://www an important airfield. Holding such a base .darpa.mil/mto/Articles/Article8.html. was deemed vital to defending the newly IEEE Virtual Museum. 2006. “Post–World War II conquered reaches of the Pacific. Military Applications of Microwaves.” Thanks to the American breaking of [Online information; retrieved June 2006.] http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/ Japan’s diplomatic Purple and naval JN-25 exhibit/exhibit.php?id=159265&lid=1& codes used in radio communication, how- seq=7. ever, and especially the efforts of a team led

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by Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, U.S. The battle resulted in Japan’s loss of four Navy OP-20-G’s intelligence “Station Hypo” fleet aircraft carriers (and related aircraft and in Honolulu was able to identify Japan’s trained crews), among other vessels. The focus on Midway. This was accomplished U.S. lost Yorktown and a few other ships. by a neat piece of deception. To determine Failing to gain Midway, the Imperial Navy that Japan’s coded target (dubbed “AF” in also lost its carrier-based initiative and was radio messages) was, in fact, Midway, Hon- forced into defensive operations for the rest olulu contacted Midway by means of sub- of World War II. marine cable connections (that could not be Marc L. Schwartz and Christopher H. Sterling read by enemy forces) and told island forces See also Code Breaking; Magic; OP-20-G; to send a clear (uncoded) radio signal that Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) the garrison was short of fresh water. Subse- quently decoded Japanese messages af - Sources firmed that their intended target lacked Fuchida, Mitsuo, and Okumiya Masatake. 1955. sufficient water supplies—and thus Ameri- Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. can naval leaders knew both when and Lord, Walter. 1967. Incredible Victory. New York: where the next Japanese attack would fall. Harper & Row. Signals intelligence also revealed a good deal Parker, Frederick D. 1993. A Priceless Advantage: about the order of battle of Japanese forces U.S. Navy Communications Intelligence and the and some of their intentions. Battles of Coral Sea, Midway, and the Aleutians. Cryptologic History Series IV, World War II, This vital knowledge allowed the badly Volume 5. Fort Meade, MD: National stretched American fleet to concentrate its Security Agency. fighting forces, including its (only) three car- Prados, John. 1995. Combined Fleet Decoded: The riers in the Pacific, in the right place and Secret History of American Intelligence and the time, ignoring Japanese attempts to deflect Japanese Navy in World War II. New York: attention with attacks on the Aleutian Random House. Prange, Gordon W., et al. 1982. Miracle at Islands far to the north. The Japanese force of Midway. New York: McGraw-Hill. approximately 200 vessels included eight carriers. The outclassed American side included the carrier Yorktown, which had been rushed to repair (from damage received Military Affiliate Radio System in the Coral Sea fight) in just forty-eight (MARS) hours at Pearl Harbor. The ensuing battle for Midway was a fierce air engagement The Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) between carrier-based fighter and bomber was organized in 1948 as the Military Ama- groups. Adding to their vital signals intelli- teur Radio System, a network of volunteer gence–derived knowledge, however, Amer- licensed civilian “ham,” or amateur, radio ican forces were also lucky. After several operators who provided auxiliary communi- failed attempts, their key air strike against cations services for America’s military. The the Japanese carriers came as the Japanese MARS system traces its origins back even were reloading aircraft and were thus at their further, however, to the formation in 1925 of most vulnerable. the Army Amateur Radio System (AARS), a small civilian volunteer network sponsored

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by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Its purpose Corps MARS had nearly thirty. All of the was to enlist enthusiasts in the new field of MARS stations in South Vietnam used civil- radio operations and communications in the ian-produced, commercially available single- Signal Corps’ programs of radio-wave re - sideband radios. These stations provided search and radio equipment development. “phone patch” services for American military During World War II, the AARS system personnel serving in Southeast Asia. Once became moribund because national security contacted via radio by a station in South Viet- regulations prohibited civilians from using nam, a U.S. civilian MARS network operator broadcast equipment. would place a collect telephone call to a ser- After the war, however, the U.S. Army viceman’s home in the United States. By 1970 reactivated AARS and shortly thereafter MARS connections were reportedly accessi- replaced it with the MARS system. The ble to every American unit in Vietnam. Radio objective of the change was to cultivate a use imposed a different vernacular, however, new pool of experienced personnel capable and many Vietnam-era veterans fondly of assisting with the American military’s remember punctuating their brief conversa- communications needs in the event of tions with the word “over.” national or local emergencies. Each branch of During the1980s MARS networks provided the armed services eventually developed its communications conduits for American mili- own MARS system, the last being the forma- tary personnel overseas, as well as disaster tion of the Navy–Marine Corps MARS in response functions at home. In the United 1963. States, MARS operators work with the Federal During the early Cold War period, expan- Emergency Management Agency and with sion of the MARS systems was driven by the National Disaster Medical System, which the government’s emphasis on civil defense coordinates the work of federal, state, and preparedness, especially for a nuclear attack local agencies providing medical and public on the United States by the Soviet Union. By health services during peacetime disasters. the 1960s, however, the emphasis in MARS Although use of the Internet narrowed development began to shift to more global demand for MARS services, in the early 2000s coverage, and a worldwide network of civil- MARS operators transmitted simplified text ian radio operators was recruited to help messages, known as “morale messages,” to provide communications links to support American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq potential deployments of American troops and placed long-distance telephone calls to overseas. the United States for active duty personnel. MARS expansion in East and Southeast Laura M. Calkins Asia was especially rapid during the period of American military involvement in Viet- See also Army Signal Corps; Iraq War (2003– nam. The MARS system in South Vietnam Present); Radio; Vietnam War (1959–1975) was launched in 1965 with only six small sta- Sources tions. By late 1969, when the United States Marine Corps Institute. 1992. The MARS had a half-million troops in South Vietnam, Operator. Washington, DC: Marine Corps the Army system alone had forty-seven sta- Institute, Marine Barracks. tions in the country, while the Navy–Marine

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Rienzi, Thomas M. 1972. Communications- munications Electronics Group, still as part Electronics 1962–1970. Washington, DC: of JCS, in midyear. Department of the Army. The Military Communications-Electronics Thompson, Paul. 1968. “MARS Calling.” Leatherneck 51 (January): 84–85. Board (MCEB) was established in October 1958 with the creation of the JCS Joint Staff. The board’s oversight function was sup- ported with communications and electronics Military Communications- expertise from the several military depart- Electronics Board (MCEB) ments. The chairmanship of MCEB was assigned to the director for Communica- After years of competition and disagree- tions-Electronics (J6) until, four years later, ment, cooperation in military communica- the director of the Defense Communications tions across the American military services Agency became chairman. The National was forced by the exigencies of World War II, Security Agency also became part of MCEB and despite many organizational and name and at the same time the level of the board changes, it continues today. For nearly a half- was raised to that of an advisory body serv- century, the Military Communications- ing the secretary of defense. In 1966 the man- Electronics Board has fulfilled the coordi- ager of the National Communications nating role. System became chairman of MCEB. In June The word “joint,” to designate cooperating 1976, the director, Tri-Service Tactical Com- or combining of often competitive military munications System became another partic- arms, was a relatively new term in Washing- ipant on MCEB. Late in 1993, the Joint ton DC when, in July 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Commanders Group for Communications- Staff (JCS, itself newly formed) commis- Electronics began to participate in the delib- sioned the Joint Communications Board. To erations of MCEB. be staffed with four members, two each from The deputy secretary of defense revised the Army and the Navy, the board was to MCEB’s mission, organization, functions, have oversight regarding communications responsibilities, and relationships in 1998. and electronics issues, operating under the The board became the decision-making JCS umbrella. In 1948 the board was re- instrument of both JCS and the secretary of organized as the Joint Communications- defense for determining the military needs Electronics Committee (JC-EC) and in 1949 for and components of command, control, expanded its responsibility for communica- communications, and computers (C4) strat- tions electronic matters as well as added egy to support American forces in peace or membership from the recently formed U.S. war conditions. As such, the board resolves Air Force. The JC-EC mission continued issues related to the interoperability, compat- oversight of all military communications and ibility, and integration of C4 and intelligence electronics, an expanding sector in all of the and coordinates these efforts with other fed- services. The director of Communications eral agencies. MCEB also coordinates with Electronics for the JCS Joint Staff was added other nations, usually via the Combined a few months later. Due to another reorgani- Communications-Electronics Board (CCEB). zation of JCS in 1958, JC-EC functions and This is a five-nation joint military communi- structure were shifted to a new Joint Com- cations-electronics (C-E) organization that

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coordinates any military C-E matter that is semaphore systems, sending a courier on a referred to it by a member nation. CCEB direct road was nearly always the fastest member nations are Australia, Canada, New way to transmit military messages (think of Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the Paul Revere’s famous ride in 1775). United States. CCEB consists of a senior C4 Carl von Clausewitz, in On War (1832), representative from each member nation. underscored the value of military roads in MCEB continues to be chaired by the chapter XVI on lines of communication: director for Command, Control, Communi- “Only those roads on which magazines, hos- cations, and Computer Systems (J6) of the pitals, stations, posts for dispatches and let- Joint Staff and is composed of flag officer— ters are organized under commandants with or senior executive service—level represen- police and garrisons, can be looked upon as tatives of more than twenty-two organiza- real lines of communication.” tions from the services and defense agencies. As in so many activities in which they Danny Johnson excelled, the Romans promoted empire See also Defense Communications Agency expansion with the building and mainte- (DCA, 1960–1991); National Communica- nance of a superior road system. The legions tions System (NCS); National Security and others built perhaps as many as 50,000 Agency (NSA) miles of hard-surfaced roadway, of which the 160-mile Appian Way heading south Sources from Rome is probably the most famous. Department of Defense. 1998. Military Communications-Electronics Board (MCEB): Roman roads (such as that behind Hadrian’s Department of Defense Directive, Number Wall) provided the right of way for many 5100.35. 1998. Washington, DC: Department later highways in Britain and elsewhere. of Defense. Under orders from British monarch Department of Defense. 2002. Military George I to suppress a rebellion in Scotland, Communications-Electronics Board, Organiza- Major General George Wade (1673–1748) tion, Mission and Functions Manual. Washing- ton, DC: Government Printing Office. spent sixteen years (1724–1740) directing the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 1995. Doctrine for Command, construction of a widening web of some 250 Control, Communications and Computer (C4) miles of military roadways across the coun- Systems Support to Joint Operations. Joint try to link old and new fortresses and bar- Publication 6-0 (May 30). Washington, DC: racks. His designated successor, Major Joint Chiefs of Staff. William Caulfield, continued the process for another quarter-century (1740–1767) after the second Jacobite invasion (1745–1746). Military Roads Stone bridges (more than forty of them in Scotland) were usually the most expensive Roads built by the military are an excellent part of these building campaigns—and though not unique example of the melding of many survive today. manmade transport and communications In western Europe and the American links (waterways could obviously serve the colonies, late eighteenth-century post roads same purpose, as, after about 1830, could rail- (e.g., the Boston Post Road) connected cities ways). Especially prior to the late-eigh teenth- to encourage more and faster mail service. century appearance of optical or mechanical Congress helped to fund construction of post

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roads as the country expanded, and military Taylor, William. 1996. The Military Roads roads to help extend communication (and of Scotland. Colonsay, Argyll, Scotland: control) to the frontier. The latter appeared House of Lochar. War Office. 1935. Military Engineering, Vol V: first in the old Northwest (now the upper Roads. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Midwest) and then in the trans-Mississip- Office. pian region from at least the 1820s to the post–Civil War period. The short-lived Pony Express (1860–1861) from St. Joseph, Mis- Miniaturization souri, to California was an expensive private example of the same idea. Efficient use of electronic circuits and the mil- In the American Civil War (1861–1865), itary equipment based on them has greatly both sides sought to build and control mili- improved over the past half-century thanks to tary roads (and railroads) while denying increasingly small, portable, and capable their use to the enemy. But the major change equipment with lower power demands and in the role of military roads was already less heat production. With mechanical de- apparent: given the availability of telegraphy, vices, miniaturization was a slow and serial the roads now rarely served communications process accomplished by a few experts. While needs. World War I, being largely static save the trend to miniaturize electronics was espe- for its opening and closing months, did cially driven by Cold War military needs, it not lend itself to much road building. World began before World War II with the drive to War II military road-building projects such shrink vacuum tubes to reduce their power as the Alaska Highway and Burma Road needs and heat output. were built largely for supply needs rather Three parallel and overlapping paths of than communication. Even the interstate technology development have pushed mini- highway system approved by the U.S. Con- aturization in electronics. First came the Bell gress in 1956 was constructed with military Laboratory’s development of the transistor needs very much in mind, though those (1948), followed by the Kilby-Noyce inven- needs no longer focused on supporting tion of the integrated circuit (1959), which communication. revolutionized electronics beginning in the Christopher H. Sterling 1960s. Yet the notion of printed circuit boards See also Couriers; Hadrian’s Wall; Horses and dates back to 1943. Components that had Mules; Mobile Communications; Vehicles relied for a half-century on cumbersome and and Transport fragile vacuum tube technology could now Sources be made far smaller and less power hungry. Clausewitz, Carl von. 1832 (1976). On War. The public saw this breakthrough in terms of Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. shrinking hearing aids (and other medical Hulbert, Archer Butler. 1904. Military Roads of devices) and ever-smaller portable radios, the Mississippi Basin: The Conquest of the Old while all military services gained greater Northwest. Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark. Overland Trail Links. “Military Roads of the communication capabilities, though the Old West.” [Online information; retrieved devices used took up less space and power. April 2007.] http://www.overland.com/ The second was development of both mil- militaryroad.html. itary and civil missile systems, from the Ger-

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man V-2 of World War II to liquid-fueled process of miniaturization may have run its intermediate-range and then intercontinental course. ballistic missiles, and finally to solid-fuel Christopher H. Sterling rockets. The cost of developing sufficient See also Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); power to launch missile payloads—and later Communication Satellites; Computer; Kilby, to place them in orbit for space exploration Jack St. Clair (1923–2005) and Noyce, Robert purposes—strongly supported development Norton (1927–1990); Mobile Communica- of miniature components. The case is made tions; Solid State Electronics; Transistor; when one compares early Soviet and Amer- Vacuum Tube ican missiles. The former were huge largely Sources because Russian electronics lagged behind Electronics, Editors of. 1980. An Age of Innovation: those of the West, and brute power was The World of Electronics, 1930–1980. New needed to launch the archaic electronic sys- York: McGraw-Hill. tems into orbit. American missiles and Keyes, R. W. 1988. “Miniaturization of Electron- spacecraft had smaller engines, which drove ics and Its Limits.” IBM Journal of Research the need for them to be far more capable per and Development 32: 1. Kovacs, G. T. A. 2000. “The Past, Present and pound launched. Potential Future of Miniaturization Technolo- The third (and most obvious to the public) gies.” Washington, DC: Defense Advance has been the development of the digital com- Research Projects Agency. puter, and the solid state electronics–driven Stevenson, William R. 1966. Miniaturization and shrinking of computer components from Micro-miniaturization of Army Communica- tions-Electronics 1946–1964. Historical room-size mainframe devices to stand-alone Monograph 1, Project Number AMC 21M. units, to desktop devices, and now laptop Fort Monmouth, NJ: Headquarters and U.S. computers. The first computer to use inte- Army Electronics Command. grated circuits was the PDP-8 of 1965. The first integrated circuit microprocessor came six years later with the Intel 4004. The con- stant press for faster operation and greater Missile Range Communications memory capacity puts more power in the hands (literally) of a user in the early 2000s During and after the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force than a whole room-size computer could Eastern Test Range supported both military generate a half-century earlier. And while missile test launches and the civilian space capacity rises, size shrinks, as does the price program. The range extended from Cape per unit of computing power—not a bad Canaveral, Florida, 5,000 miles south to combination. Ascension Island in the South Atlantic But there are clear limits to the process of Ocean. Missiles were launched from the cape electronics miniaturization—the laws of and were tracked over the range by facilities physics for one, and the specific problem on a number of Caribbean islands that of heat dissipation of components jammed included Grand Bahama, Antigua, and ever closer to one another. Such limits—at Ascension. In addition, several ships were least as they are understood at the beginning stationed in the Atlantic to serve as floating of the twenty-first century—suggest that the tracking sites.

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During a missile launch, all of those track- needed. Public address systems were widely ing sites had to intercommunicate on a real- used on the launch complexes and in the time basis, both with each other and with the assembly hangars and buildings on the cape. cape. Each location needed voice, data, and That equipment served a critical function in video communications for routine, ongoing, advising personnel about launch and normal daily work. The Air Force’s 2862 Ground work activities. Because of the size of the Electronics Engineering Installation Agency buildings, making those systems work effec- (GEEIA) Squadron was responsible for the tively was a challenging task. On each installation and depot-level maintenance of launch complex, closed circuit television that communications equipment. cameras provided a view of the missile to On the cape, those communications trav- personnel in the blockhouse and mission eled through a total of approximately 1,000 control. miles of lead-covered, buried cables that con- By the early twenty-first century, many of tained hundreds and sometimes several the Cape Canaveral launch facilities from thousand pairs of copper wires. GEEIA per- the 1960s had been abandoned in place—no sonnel interconnected these cables by splic- longer needed and too expensive to remove. ing them together, one wire at a time. Since GEEIA organization activities were trans- the cape is at sea level, water put those ferred to other Air Force organizations. buried cables at risk. Therefore, they were Ronald R. Thomas pressurized with an inert gas to keep water See also Communication Satellites from entering. Cape Canaveral and the var- ious tracking locations all had their own Source electromechanical telephone systems that National Aeronautics & Space Administration. required frequent depot-level maintenance “Kennedy Space Center History.” [Online from GEEIA personnel. Expansion of the information; retrieved January 2007.] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/ telephone systems was ongoing to support about/history/index.html. the ever-expanding needs of the Eastern Test Range. High-frequency radio equipment was used to provide communications be- tween the cape and the downrange tracking Mobile Communications sites. At all of those locations, GEEIA person- nel installed and maintained that equipment, Effective mobile communications are central including the antenna systems. to the operation of any fighting force. With Each launch complex had an extensive the exception of ancient and traditional meth- complement of missile intercommunication ods of message sending, technology has made equipment. It provided a multichannel voice truly mobile communications possible only communications capability on the launch in the past few decades. Mobile communica- pad to the nearby control blockhouse and to tions have evolved from supporting military downrange sites. Often, the heat from a mis- action to becoming an integral military force. sile launch would damage the missile inter- With the mid-nineteenth-century invention communication equipment on a launch pad, of the telegraph, land-based military signal- and GEEIA personnel would perform main- ing has served less to carry messages than to tenance work and install new equipment as coordinate widespread use of various

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wheeled, and eventually motorized, vehi- bulky and heat-producing vacuum tube cles. By the 1930s, mobile radio began to equipment. Battery-powered “trench” radios vastly increase the coordinated use of all were bulky but at least allowed some use on military transport and fighting vehicles. the move, usually carried by trucks or horses For thousands of years, mobile military and by 1918 sometimes in the new tanks. communications meant carrying a message Though some 10,000 wireless sets were made by courier, pigeon, animal, or vehicle. Using in the United States, American participation vehicles to carry military communication in World War I was too brief to see most of dates at least to Roman times when military them put to use. Further, tactical radio was roads were maintained for use by, among rarely more than a backup for line telecom- others, military couriers, some of whom munications, though British forces in the traveled by chariot or coach. For centuries, Middle East (with little line telegraphy or however, land vehicular speeds were no telephony) made good use of animal- or faster than a horse. This continued into the wagon-borne pack radio sets from 1915 to early days of military telegraph (1850s) and 1918. telephone (1870s), save for rapid cable laying Radio technology developed further dur- by special teams using cable carts. ing the interwar period. Both the British and Mobile military communications in the American army signal arms actively pur- modern sense begins with the coming of sued vehicle radio development. Develop- radio at the turn of the twentieth century. For ment of FM radio techniques greatly aided only with wireless technology were military development of U.S. Army vehicular and forces able to move and still communicate man-pack radio systems. As early as 1938 without being tied by wire to higher head- Germany had manufactured a complete line quarters. In 1906, the U.S. Army developed of portable and mobile radio equipment for a portable wireless pack set that could be its army, links that would prove vital in the carried by three mules. It was powered by forthcoming blitzkrieg warfare. Germany’s batteries and used a 60-foot telescoping integrated use of ground armor and air antenna, and could soon be mounted on a power in 1939–1940 was tied together with single wagon. The original induction coil effective tactical radio communications. was replaced by a quenched spark-gap set Rapid movement by German motorized by 1911. The motorcycle became another use- divisions as well as their close air support ful means of dispatching military messages. were made more effective by their use of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, for example, shortwave radio communications. were used by the U.S. Army during the Mex- World War II’s wide-ranging battles ican Punitive Expedition of 1916. required tactical radio communications, per- World War I saw a push to develop haps best exemplified in the war of move- smaller and lighter radios, primarily for use ment across North Africa from 1940 to 1943. in airplanes, airships, and submarines rather More than 90,000 Harley-Davidson motorcy- than trench-bound land warfare where cles were produced in the United States dur- mobility was rare for much of the fighting. ing World War II, many of them used in Several factors limited radio’s portability in dispatch duty. Lighter motor scooters were the early twentieth century, chief among also used. The ubiquitous “jeep” began to them the use of fragile spark-gap, and later, replace both by the mid-1940s. Specialized

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radio trucks were vital to fast-moving Axis Signal Corps focused. In general, goals in and Allied armies, especially in the Euro- developing a new generation of combat pean and African theaters of World War II. radios included lower power consumption, With transmitters and receivers built and smaller size, lighter weight, ability to use tested to stand rugged treatment over diffi- more frequencies with closer channel spac- cult terrain, wide temperature and humidity ing for efficient operation, and higher relia- variation, and constant use, these vehicles bility. By the 1970s and 1980s, additional were essential means of keeping active com- requirements included more attention to manders in touch with fast-changing battle internal communications security (which fronts. Multiple spare parts (especially frag- had become a serious problem in the Viet- ile vacuum tubes) were supplied, water- nam War) and the ability to send and receive proofing was standard, and antennas were data along with voice. mounted on springs. Engineers sought to make vehicular and Often, sufficient equipment was not the portable radios more compatible. Antennas problem—sufficient trained personnel was. were improved in an attempt to make them The public perception of portability became less obvious to enemy forces by means of the U.S. Army’s “walkie-talkies” that looked telescoping or use of ground trailing types. something like the earliest cell phones of Batteries (primary type were longer lasting four decades later. Bricklike in size, shape, but could not be recharged; secondary type and weight, they allowed some portability as could be recharged and used again) were well as links to frontline fighting forces. made more heat and water resistant and High-powered land mobile radio sets longer lasting. Vietnam saw the introduction became common at division and regimental by 1965 of squad-level combat FM radios, levels. Tank radios initially suffered from some of them belt mounted, others with battery shortages and recharging, and often receivers built into helmets, though they saw from varied equipment. With improved limited use in the jungle combat conditions. radios, telegraph (code) communication Over the last few decades, a fundamental could be conducted by 1944 at distances of revolution in mobile military communication more than 100 miles from vehicles in motion. has integrated digitization, solid state circuits, Fleets of tanks and personnel carriers were and miniaturization with ever more capable connected to central command by radio military communication satellites. Radio communication. U.S. Army vehicles made types by the last quarter of the twentieth cen- early use of FM multichannel radio for static- tury varied by their intended use and range. free high-frequency communications, despite Tactical types included the squad radio (a the many sources of interference in the vehi- small, handheld FM unit) for very local com- cle itself. Throat and then lip microphones munication within ground forces, a main were developed to improve communica- ground force communication device that was tion in high-noise situations. Virtually all also FM and was carried in a backpack for armored vehicles, Allied or Axis, contained longer-distance communication, a forward at least one form of radio to meld them into air controller AM radio in a backpack for com- an effective mobile force. municating with ground support aircraft, and Postwar radio development centered on a special forces high-frequency radio using FM’s capabilities, on which the U.S. Army single-sideband technology over longer dis-

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tances. Nontactical types included search deploy a lethal modular and network-centric and rescue AM radios on various frequen- force. Six brigades are planned (most ori- cies, used for downed air personnel or other ented toward the Pacific) by 2008. The first rescue duties, and a guard duty/fire res- were employed in Iraq in 2003. cue/other use type of radio, which could be The developing Future Combat Systems low or high band, using FM. The U.S. Army and the Warfighter Information Network– has generally taken the lead in developing Tactical are further examples of this multiser- most of these, with the Marine Corps using vice trend toward full integration of commu- similar equipment. nications with fighting units on the ground The Gulf War of 1990–1991 made clear the and in the air. role of mobile communications. Integrated Christopher H. Sterling air and ground unit communications kept See also Airmobile Communications; Combat up with a fast-changing battlefield area. The Information Transport System (CITS); expansive desert terrain called for flexible Communication Satellites; Couriers; Fiber use of multiple spectrum channels and con- Optics; Field Wire and Cable; Fire/ stant command-and-control links made pos- Flame/Torch; Future Combat Systems sible by increasingly digital equipment. The (FCS); Global Information Grid (GIG); Global Positioning System (GPS); Gulf War importance of data over voice communica- (1990–1991); Heliograph and Mirrors; tions became immediately evident, sup- Internet; Iraq War (2003–Present); Joint ported by use of more than sixty military Tactical Radio System (JTRS); Mexican satellites. At the same time, Iraqi communi- Punitive Expedition (1916–1917); Pigeons; cations were steadily interdicted, with imme- Radio; Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS); diate impact on the battlefield. Single Sideband (SSB); Smoke; Vacuum Now being developed are the first fully Tube; Vehicles and Transport; Vietnam War integrated combat systems, developed from (1959–1975); Walkie-Talkie; Warfighter the ground up and incorporating various Information Network–Tactical (WIN-T); communications capabilities and links as World War I; World War II central features. In October 1999, for exam- Sources ple, the Army announced development of Beauchamp, K. G. 2001. “Telegraphy at War” In the first two technology-enhanced, rapidly History of Telegraphy, 266–307. London: deployable Stryker brigades (named for two Institution of Electrical Engineers. Medal of Honor winners) using off-the-shelf Bergen, John D. 1985. Military Communications: technology from the private sector. Heavy A Test for Technology. Washington, DC: U.S. tracked vehicles (armored personnel carriers Army Center for Military History. Campen, Alan D., ed. 1992. The First Information and tanks) are being replaced by a family of War: The Story of Communications, Computers eight lighter, faster, more fuel-efficient and Intelligence Systems in the Persian Gulf wheeled vehicles. The Army is developing War. Fairfax, VA: AFCEA International the capability to put brigade combat teams Press. anywhere in the world within 96 hours, a Gonzalez, Dan. 2005. Network Centric Operations Case Study: The Stryker Brigade Combat Team. division on the ground in 120 hours, and Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp. five divisions within thirty days. The O’Connell, J. D. 1942. “Development of Vehicu- brigades build on the strike force concept, lar Equipment.” Radio News Special Signal which focuses on the ability to rapidly Corps Issue (November): 106–109, 198–202.

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Rice, M. A. 1994. Command & Control Support overcome static (by use of narrower channels Systems in the Gulf War: Land Warfare. or more transmitter power, for example) London: Brassey’s Battlefield Weapons failed. AM is subject to varied coverage Systems & Technology. Tasker, Alan D. “U.S. Military Portable Radios.” depending on time of day—skyway pro- With rebuttal by Dennis Starks. [Online pagation at night can send semipredictable article; retrieved June 2006.] http:// signals a long distance. Most fiber optic hereford.ampr.org/history/portable.html. transmissions use AM, as do single-sideband Woods, David L. 1965. “Tactical Wireless, transmissions, which are a more efficient Radio, and Radiotelephone.” In A History mode of AM. of Tactical Communication Techniques, 209–239. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta FM radio was developed in 1928–1933 by (reprinted by Arno Press in “Telecom- prolific radio inventor Edwin Howard Arm- munications,” 1974). strong. He was awarded the key patents in late 1933, and commercial FM radio began in 1941. Armstrong gave free use of his patent Modulation rights to the military during World War II. FM radio was an important mode of military Modulation is the process by which voice communications during (and since) World or other intelligence is added to radio waves War II, especially for mobile communica- produced by a transmitter (an unmodulated tions, as with tanks. In Armstrong’s FM sys- radio signal is called a carrier). Each modu- tem, signals are varied by frequency rather lation mode has strengths and weaknesses, than power output. He found that using a some technical and some economic. Ampli- channel twenty times wider than an AM tude modulation (AM) was the only mode in channel (200 kHz) would create an analog general use until frequency modulation (FM) signal with vastly improved frequency became available in the late 1930s. AM and response (up to 15,000 cycles per second, FM transmissions are subject to an inherent three times that of AM) that could avoid and relatively poor signal-to-noise ratio, both artificial (manmade) and atmospheric though FM is much better than AM. Both are interference (e.g., static from electrical analog systems and dominated radio into storms). An FM signal need be only twice as the 1980s and 1990s, when digital services strong as a more distant competing transmit- began to appear. The newest modulation ter to suppress the interfering signal. Gener- approach is software-defined radio, devel- ally using a very high frequency (VHF) oped by the military. spectrum (often called VHF radio outside AM was the only mode of military radio the United States), FM signals are propa- available up to the beginning of World War II. gated by direct line-of-sight means day or “AM” simply indicates that the signal’s night, limiting transmitter coverage to a strength is being modulated (several thou- radius of no more than 60 to 70 miles de - sand times per second) in accordance with pending on local terrain. the amplitude or strength of the carrier wave. Phase modulation (PM) is a variation of But AM is prone to natural and most man- FM and modulates the polarity of the wave. made electrical interference, which cannot The two methods are very similar in the be electronically separated from the desired sense that any attempt to shift either the fre- signal. Constant research to finds ways to quency or phase is accomplished by a

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change in the other. PM is not very widely See also Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890– used because it tends to require more com- 1954); Communication Satellites; Fiber plex receiving equipment. Optics; Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); Mobile Communications; Radio; Single Pulse code modulation (PCM) was devel- Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System oped in 1939 by English inventor Alec H. (SINCGARS); Single Sideband; Spectrum Reeves. PCM is the most important of sev- Frequencies; Spread Spectrum eral forms of pulse modulation because it can be used to transmit information over Sources Defense Science Board Task Force. 2003. long distances with hardly any interference Wideband Radio Frequency Modulation: or distortion; for this reason it has become Dynamic Access to Mobile Information increasingly important in the transmission of Networks. Washington, DC: Department of data in the space program and between com- Defense. puters. Department of the Army. 1990. “AM Radio Operations.” In Communications in a “Come- Software-defined radio (SDR) involves as-you-are” War, Field Manual 24–12. computer software defining the modulation Washington, DC: Government Printing method to be used. One of the first SDR units Office. was an early 1990s U.S. Army project Department of the Army. 1990. “FM Radio dubbed SpeakEasy. Its primary goal was to Operations.” In Communications in a “Come- use programmable processing to emulate as-you-are” War, Field Manual 24–12. Washington, DC: Government Printing nearly a dozen existing military radios, oper- Office. ating in frequency bands between 2 and 200 Marks, William S. 1944. “FM in World War II.” MHz. Another design goal was to be able to Radio News Special U.S. Army Signal Corps easily incorporate new coding and modula- Issue (February): 243, 426–428. tion standards in the future, so that military McNicol, Dennis. 1946. Radio’s Conquest of Space. New York: Murray Hill Books (reprinted by communications can keep pace with ad - Arno Press, 1974). vances in coding and modulation tech- National Association of Broadcasters. 1999. niques. The project was also defined to NAB Engineering Handbook. Washington, DC: operate with existing ground force radios NAB. (such as “frequency agile” VHF, FM, and Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System), Air Force radios (VHF AM), Navy Morse Code radios (VHF AM and high-frequency single- sideband teleprinters), and communication The Morse telegraphic code was largely satellites. The SpeakEasy project produced a developed by telegraph inventor Samuel F. demonstration radio only fifteen months B. Morse and his long-neglected assistant, into a three-year research project, and it Alfred B. Vail, in 1843. proved so successful that further develop- In the eight years of telegraph experimen- ment was halted and the radio went into tation to that point, Morse’s system commu- production with a 4 to 400 MHz range. As a nicated by leaving a series of long, wavy military project, the radio strongly distin- lines on a strip of paper—a long, wavy ink guished “red” (unsecured secret data) from line was termed a dash, while a shorter line “black” (cipher-secured data). was considered a dot. A year later, Vail Christopher H. Sterling invented a telegraphic sounder, which

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promptly replaced most ink recording devices and converted the electric telegraph from a written to a sound-based system. As do some modern electronic voting machines, the telegraph also left a written record. Tele- graph messages were later again written as typed messages, only to change back to electrical sound, and ultimately to digital signals. Most signal “codes,” including the Morse code, did not intend to be secret. Codes sim- ply made the telegraph more efficient and thus less expensive to use. If the message must be kept secret, then it must be en- crypted into a true code or cipher. Like mod- ern signal flag codes, the Morse code is simply a means to send messages by relating short and longer sounds to numbers and the letters of the alphabet. Numbers and letters are “coded” in plain text—via the electric telegraph, sound radio, flashing light, or This 1877 print shows some of the apparatus utilized single flag wig-wag. Because it could readily for sending and receiving coded telegraph messages be applied to many different signal/ using the alphabet and numbers that made up the communication methods, the Morse code “Morse code.” (Library of Congress) became the most useful. After the Pearl Harbor attack (7 December 1941), a U.S. Navy signalman proved vital to a dramatic rescue that saved 300 sailors the large flag to the right meant the number trapped in the hull of the overturned battle- one while a wave left meant a two. Dropping ship Oklahoma. For nearly four hours he the flag in front the of the signaler meant a “read” (by listening to) Morse messages “pause” or number three and served as tapped by sailors within the ship, and with the end of the letter in the message being his pocket knife tapped back messages sent. Myer also evolved a second code in promising help was on the way. After a hole which sending a two equaled the letter “T,” was cut in the hull, the trapped sailors were while twenty-two equaled the letter “A,” guided to safety. Almost every signalman or and 222 equaled “D,” just as one equaled radioman in the U.S. Navy learned how to “L,” eleven equaled “N,” and 111 equaled send and receive Morse by sound over a “Y,” and so on. telegraph line or radio, a tap on a ship’s hull, During the 1840s, British army signalmen or by flashing light visible day or night. began to use the dot/dash of the Morse A little help was needed for Albert Myer’s sound telegraph code instead of Myer’s ones wig-wag flag code to use the Morse code. and twos. The Royal Navy also began to use Myer had initially declared that a wave of Morse in their flashing light signals. The

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modern International Morse Code was See also Code, Codebook; Flaghoist; Flags; invented by Friedrich Clemens Gerke in 1848 Heliograph and Mirrors; High-Speed Morse; and used for telegraphy between Hamburg International Code of Signals (ICS); Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872); Myer, Albert James and Cuxhaven in Germany. After some (1828–1880); Night Signals; Signal Book; minor changes in 1865 it was standardized at Telegraph the telegraphy congress in Paris. By 1896 the U.S. Army (after twenty-six Sources years of using Myer’s system) converted to Helft, Miguel. 2006. “A Fading Signal.” New the Continental Code for electric telegraphy, York Times, December 27, C1, C4. Perera, Tom. n.d. “The ‘Morse’ Code and the but retained Myer code for heliograph flashes Continental Code.” [Online article; retrieved and wig-wag flags. Three years later, all December 2006.] http://chss.montclair American railroads and commercial firms .edu/~pererat/percode.htm. dropped the Continental Code in favor of American Morse. Ultimately, military services of both Britain and the United States adopted Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872) American Morse, finally providing a single code for electric telegraphy, one flag wig-wag, Inventor of the world’s most widely used and flashing light signals via either blinker or system of electric telegraphy, Samuel Morse heliograph. Though painfully slow, pyrotech- was a key figure in introducing the telecom- nic signals can also employ Morse code. As it munications era. Arrival of the telegraph can take as long as five seconds to fire and would open unforeseen opportunities for view each burst (using, say, red flares as military communications, first made clear dashes and white flares as dots), such mes- in mid-nineteenth-century wars in both sages are not of much value in most tactical Europe and the United States. military or naval signaling. Since Morse code Morse was born on 27 April 1791 in relies on an on-off keyed signal, it uses sim- Charlestown, Massachusetts, outside Boston. pler equipment than voice radio communica- He graduated from Yale University in 1810 tion, requires less spectrum space, and can be and then studied art in Britain. Until the “read” in such high-noise/low-signal envi- 1830s, he trained to be a painter and prac- ronments as military actions. ticed fine painting of both individuals and Morse is used today by amateur radio scenes, though he also produced a few (ham) operators, even though in late 2006 the mechanical inventions. He also worked in Federal Communications Commission an- early photography, training, among others, nounced it would no longer require that capa- Matthew Brady. Morse unsuccessfully ran bility. Old-fashioned stock tickers using a long for political office on an anti-immigration strip of paper to record stock prices using ticket, and published anti-Catholic pam- Morse code (the mechanism often covered phlets. He studied and painted in Europe with a transparent glass dome) are evident in from 1829 to 1832. photos and motion pictures of the turn of the On the voyage home from Europe in 1832, last century. Morse code is also used as an Morse, always interested in science though assistive technology, which can help people lacking training, first developed the gist of a with a variety of disabilities to communicate. telegraph system in conversations with a fel- David L. Woods low passenger. He demonstrated a working

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model late in 1835 and focused full time on needs in such conflicts as the Crimean (1854– developing his new invention by 1837. He 1856) and American Civil (1861–1865) wars. had great trouble getting a telegraph signal A number of the original backers of the tele- to travel very far through a wire until a col- graph fell out with Morse and one another, league suggested a stronger battery. By 1838 adding to the bitterness of his final years. Morse and Alfred Vail had worked out the Morse died on 2 April 1872 at his home in basics of what became known as Morse code New York City. to simplify and thus speed up the sending of Christopher H. Sterling messages. Granted a patent in 1840, he also See also American Civil War (1861–1865); sought patent protection in several European European Late Nineteenth-Century Wars; nations. Morse Code; Telegraph After several failed attempts, in 1843 Con- gress voted to allocate $30,000 (more than a Sources half-million dollars in 2007 terms) for a test Library of Congress. “Samuel F. B. Morse Papers at the Library of Congress, 1793– line along the 40 miles between Baltimore 1919.” [Online information; retrieved April and Washington DC. Initially constructed 2007.] http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ underground, overhead lines on poles were sfbmhtml/sfbmhome.html. found to be cheaper and more reliable. On 24 Mabee, Carleton. 1943. The American Leonardo: May 1844, the first message, “What Had God The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. New York: Knopf. Wrought,” was sent by Morse from the cap- Morse, Edward Lind, ed. 1914. Samuel F. B. ital north to Baltimore. Morse, His Letters and Journals, 2 vols. Boston: Over the next two years, the telegraph Houghton Mifflin (reprinted in one by Da was extended to New York, Boston, and Buf- Capo, 1973). falo; other firms entered the business (often Prime, Samuel Irenaeus. 1875. The Life of Samuel starting patent fights); and Morse again trav- F. B. Morse, LL.D, Inventor of the Electro- Magnetic Recording Telegraph. New York: eled to Europe to secure patent protection. Appleton (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). Several years later a number of European Silverman, Kenneth. 2003. Lightning Man: The governments awarded him a financial prize Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. New York: for his telegraph work. His American patent Knopf. rights were upheld by the Supreme Court in Thompson, Robert Luther. 1947. Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry 1854, and he began to collect royalty pay- in the United States, 1832–1866. Princeton, NJ: ments. He worked closely with Cyrus Field Princeton University Press. on several initial—and failed—attempts in the late 1850s to lay an Atlantic telegraph cable. Music Signals The remainder of Morse’s life was often difficult, as he responded to attacks by other While sounds, ranging from gunfire to vocal would-be telegraph inventors, dealt with the shouts, have undoubtedly been the most problems of his seven children, and became common means of signaling since warfare active in national conservative political began, sounds can be easily misunderstood debates over slavery and states’ rights. While or overlooked. Among the many forms of he played no direct part, his telegraph inven- viable signals cited by General Albert J. Myer tion was increasingly applied to military in his comprehensive 1872 manual, perhaps

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the most unusual were those provided by “advance”—the march; “advance quickly”— musical tones and instruments. Indeed, the quick march; “march and charge”—the some were also used to promote morale, point of war; “retreat”—the retreat; “halt”— such as bagpipes in some Scottish regiments. drum ceases; “per-form flank firing”—two The oldest musical signaling instrument is short rolls; “open the battalion”—dragoon the drum. Signal drums are still used in parts march; “form the column”—grenadier of Africa, although more as a kind of news- march; “double division”—the troop; “form paper than military device. In the Congo the square”—the long roll; “make ready and and other parts of Africa, a two-tone, fire”—the preparative; “cease firing”—the wooden-slit drum is commonly used to general; and “bring the colors”—two long broadcast news within a single village, and rolls. The traditional use of the drum has then pass it from village to village. The been for keeping time for marching troops. African drum does not communicate by The most recently reported use of the tactical rhythm or beat, but rather by tone. The Lokele drum in war was by guerrillas in the Philip- drum, for example, is made from the red pine Islands during World War II. heartwood of a wlee tree. A log is allowed to Trumpets, horns, and drums were used lie on the forest floor until the yellow sap in ancient Greek and Roman armies and wood has rotted, and is removed. The drum navies although seldom for a more specific maker chisels a narrow slit down the length signal purpose than to order an attack. Early of the log, and about halfway into it. The Greek trumpets were made of goat horn or inside of the drum is hollowed on both sides wood, and joined with brass wings. The of the slit. The two sides of the drum are cornu was a common Roman trumpet, a made into different tones; one is more hol- large curved instrument with a fairly high low, thus providing a lower tone. The low tone used to pass along the signals of the voice is the limiki lia otomali, or voice of the tuba—a long straight instrument with a flut- female; the high voice is limiki lia otolone, or tering end. Deep notes signaled advances or the voice of the male. The drum is beaten retreats. The bucini sounded reveille divi- with two short branches from the bokofe sions of the day and other orders common to tree, bound on the tips with rubber. Females army foot solders. understand the drum language, but the men By the reign of Alexander the Great (336– do all the beating. The drum is never sold; it 323 BCE), trumpets and fifes (as well as stan- is a village institution. dards and raised weapons) were used to Military drum activities were more pro- control the phalanx of his army. Perhaps the saic. As early as 500 BCE, the Persians used earliest recorded use of specific signals via kettle drums both to control cavalry forma- musical tones were the three-toned whistling tion and frighten their enemies. The snare arrows used by Genghis Khan’s Mongol cav- drum was the standard battlefield infantry alry in the late twelfth and early thirteenth communication device from the 1700s until centuries. well into the 1860s. A list of drum calls for Trumpets (most often modified into a the British army in about 1800 included the more compact bugle) are undoubtedly the following: “caution”—a short roll; “do some- longest-used military musical signal instru- thing specific” (by prearrangement)—a slam; ment. By 1800, a bugler was a key member of “form a line or battalion”—to arms; most military units and was also found

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aboard most ships. Bugle calls for meals Sources (soupee) and sleep (taps) are well known Downey, Fairfax. 1971. Fife, Drum & Bugle. Fort even outside military services. During the Collins, CO: Old Army Press. Ferguson, Allan J. 1984. “Trumpets, Bugles and first Boer War, British infantry were closing Horns in North America, 1750–1815.” Military on an enemy force when a Boer bugler Collector & Historian 36 (Spring): 2–7. sounded the call “Retire.” The well-trained Myer, Albert J. 1872. A Manual of Signals for the British units began to stumble smartly in Use of Signal Officers in the Field, and for confusion, until a bright British bugler real- Military and Naval Students, Military Schools, etc. Washington, DC: Government Printing ized what was happening—and sounded Office. “Advance”—loudly and continuously. This “Piping the Boatswain’s Call.” 1961. All Hands restored order, and the British eventually tri- 531 (April): 30–31, 34. umphed. The British infantry bugle was Woods, David L. 1965. “Signaling by Sound.” tuned to E flat and had five open notes: C, G, In A History of Tactical Communication C, E, and G. There were no keys nor slides, Techniques. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). for a bugle was shorter and smaller than the larger trumpet used with the cavalry. The small American bugle was deemed too small to play songs during long marches, so the Myer, Albert James (1828–1880) American army normally had a trumpeter play songs during long infantry marches, as An Army doctor and founder of the U.S. a trumpet (with three valves) offered a full Army Signal Corps, Myer invented the wig- range of several octaves. wag system of signaling, using flags and The British army has also used gongs for torches to convey messages. many years, generally at regimental barracks, Born in Newburgh, New York, on 20 Sep- but at times in field camps. The gong may tember 1828, Myer’s interest in communica- indicate time of day, certain formations, and tions began while he was a medical student duties. The corporal of the guard usually han- and working in the Buffalo office of the New dles this duty, which seems to be a holdover York State Telegraph Company. For his med- from the periodic voice reports given by a ical dissertation, he developed a sign lan- town crier: “12 o’clock and all’s well.” guage for deaf mutes that used taps on the Navies have their own special device for cheek or hand to spell out words. dividing a sailor’s day into segments. Prop- After joining the Army in 1854 as an assis- erly played, the boatswain’s pipe can be a tant surgeon, Myer spent a number of years musical instrument. Modern devices have at Western outposts. During this period, he gradually replaced this ancient instrument, converted his sign language into a visual however. Recorded pipe calls are often used signaling system that used flags by day and in the Navy now, combining ease with tradi- torches at night to communicate over long tion. distances. Under ideal conditions, messages David L. Woods could be sent and received for up to 15 miles. He developed a signal code by assigning See also Ancient Signals; Native American numerical values to the movements of the Signaling flag or torch to the left or right of center. By

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representing each letter of the alphabet with postwar years fighting for the Signal Corps’ a combination of numerals, messages were continued existence in the face of skeptics transmitted by moving the flag or torch who saw no value in a permanent communi- accordingly. A consummate lobbyist, Myer cations branch. In 1870 he found a peacetime won War Department approval to conduct a mission for the branch in the form of the series of tests to prove the system’s value. national weather service. Signal soldiers for- Among his assistants was Edward Porter warded weather reports to Washington via Alexander, who would eventually head the telegraph three times daily. In the signal Confederate Signal Corps for a time. office, “computers” compiled the data into In June 1860, Congress approved Myer’s weather forecasts, then called probabilities, system, making the U.S. Army among the that were published in newspapers across first in the world to have a branch dedicated the nation. Thus, Myer, as head of the solely to communications. Myer became the weather service, became widely known as Army’s first signal officer with the rank of “Old Probabilities.” major. While most of the Signal Corps’ efforts in During the Civil War, he established a the 1870s were devoted to weather reporting, wartime organization with signal officers some new advances in communications assigned to Army and corps headquarters. In were made, such as the adoption of a stan- addition to flags and torches, Myer intro- dard heliograph and improvements to the duced the use of electric telegraphy and field telegraph train. The corps also began its adapted the Beardslee magneto-electric tele- first experiments with the telephone. Myer graph for field use. Because it used a dial established a signal school to which students rather than a key, the Beardslee did not require from foreign armies were admitted and built an operator trained in Morse code. Soldiers up an official library of technical publica- carried instruments and equipment onto the tions. Having married into a wealthy family battlefield in wagons, known as telegraph (the Waldens of Buffalo, New York), Myer trains. Technical difficulties, however, eventu- moved in elegant social circles. As head of ally forced Myer to adapt the Beardslee to use the Signal Corps he also became an interna- Morse equipment. In doing so, however, Myer tional figure and attended the International came into direct competition with Secretary of Meteorological Congress in Vienna in 1873. War Edwin M. Stanton and his U.S. Military Myer became a brigadier general in 1880, Telegraph, composed of civilian operators. but he would not live long to enjoy his ele- Stanton ultimately relieved Myer of command vation in rank. He had suffered from serious of the Signal Corps in 1863, and Myer spent health problems as a young man, but had the remainder of the war largely on the side- apparently been healthy ever since. He lines. He used the time, however, to complete became ill while traveling in Europe in 1879 his text, A Manual of Signals: for the Use of and grew gradually worse after his return. Signal Officers in the Field, which codified sig- Myer died in Buffalo on 24 August 1880 from nal doctrine for the first time. nephritis. He was just fifty-one years of age. After Stanton’s removal as secretary of The following year, Fort Whipple, Vir- War in 1867, Myer won reinstatement to his ginia, just across the Potomac River from position as chief signal officer. He spent the Washington DC, was renamed Fort Myer in

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his honor. As Myer’s legacy, the U.S. Army Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Govern- Signal Corps has grown to become one of the ment Printing Office. Army’s largest and most vital branches. Scheips, Paul. J. 1963. “Union Signal Communi- cations: Innovation and Conflict.” Civil War Rebecca Robbins Raines History 9: 399–421. See also Alexander, Edward Porter (1835–1910); Scheips, Paul J. 1965. “Albert James Myer, Army Signal Corps; Beardslee Telegraph; Founder of the Army Signal Corps: A Fort Myer, Virginia; U.S. Military Telegraph Biographical Study.” Ph.D. diss., American Service (USMTS) University, Washington, DC.

Sources Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the US

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Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815) language differences often slowed message communication. For two decades bridging the late eighteenth As early as 1793, a French force besieged and early nineteenth centuries, Napoleonic in Valenciennes tried to use a hot air balloon France pursued wars of conquest across to send out reports of their status (unfortu- Europe and the Middle East, both on land nately, it floated over enemy lines)—the first and at sea. During these various wars and known use of communication by air other countless battles, both traditional and than birds. In 1794, the newly constructed improved means of military communications Chappe semaphore (or mechanical tele- played a key part in Napoleon’s highly cen- graph) system informed Parisians of the tralized military and diplomatic operations. capture of Condé-sur-l’Escaut from the Aus- European armies all made extensive use of trians less than an hour after it occurred. traditional means of signaling, from couriers Numerous additional semaphore lines were (both runners and on horseback) and signal soon built, including one from Paris south to flags for tactical messages to the mails (espe- the naval port of Toulon on the Mediter- cially the French military postal service) and ranean coast. The Chappe system lent itself postal coaches for strategic and diplomatic far more to diplomatic and strategic mili- notes. Napoleon’s forces also utilized the tary messages rather than tactical battle com- newer semaphore communications net- munications. As French forces extended their works to rapidly transmit military messages. control into new areas, additional semaphore They had to, as armies were growing larger lines were constructed for communication (and were made up increasingly of con- back to Paris. scripts, sometimes poorly trained), making Napoleon’s Military Telegraph Service them harder to control. Artillery and other operated the Chappe semaphore system and guns were rapidly improving—though could achieve message transmission speeds adding more noise to the battlefield. And as as high as 120 miles per hour in ideal condi- more countries became allied in larger wars, tions. Attempts to develop a wagon-mounted

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mobile semaphore system foundered for The Chappe semaphore (sometimes con- lack of sufficient funds. A constant risk was fusingly called a telegraph) system was the potential enemy theft of signal books quickly and widely copied by other Euro- from semaphore stations, which would com- pean states. Norway, allied to France, in- promise military secrecy. stalled a heavily used military semaphore Where the semaphore did not reach, system with three connected coastal networks Napoleon’s forces utilized a system of signal in 1809, though it was closed down after flag relays. Flags or couriers were used for Napoleon’s fall at Waterloo. The extensive such tactical tasks as artillery spotting. But as Edelcrantz system in Sweden (1794) was with the semaphore network, these optical another Scandinavian semaphore service. The means all required clear weather, and fog or British Admiralty adopted a semaphore sys- snow (let alone hours of darkness) too often tem linking Deal on the east coast with Lon- intervened and effectively shut the systems don to warn of potential invasion danger. down. In attempting to use the flag system in It also developed a semaphore system some- 1809 to communicate between Napoleon’s what similar to Chappe’s in the years to fol- headquarters at Vienna and Strasbourg, for low, and soon linked London with major port example, poorly placed signalers doomed the cities and naval bases on the south coast. system to failure. In several other in stances, Offered an early electrical telegraph system courier messages meant to follow on and by Francis Ronalds in 1816, the Admiralty extend a semaphore or flag signal (which was turned it down as unnecessary. In 1797, the presumed to be faster and thus to arrive first) British army had introduced its Radiated Tele- arrived though the original semaphore or graph (semaphore) System, which proved to flag-transmitted message did not, adding fur- be more mobile than the already antiquated ther confusion to battlefield conditions. Murray Telegraph semaphore system. During the bitter 1808–1814 Peninsular The semaphore networks that had so Campaign in French-occupied Portugal and aided Napoleon’s armies were also used to Spain, the British constructed a string of report his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. more than a hundred strong points or forts Christopher H. Sterling along the Torres Vedras defensive lines in See also Airships and Balloons; Chappe, Claude Portugal (1809–1811), connecting them with (1763–1805); Edelcrantz, Abraham a semaphore network. Royal Navy person- (1754–1821); Flags; France: Army; Military nel operated the semaphore system, which Roads; Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820); had signal stations located about eight miles Postal Services; Semaphore (Mechanical apart and allowed for flexible army sup- Telegraphs); Trafalgar, Battle of (21 October 1805); Waterloo, Battle of (18 June 1815) port when a fort was attacked. Signals com- bined standard naval usage with specialized Sources army terms as needed. A military road, hid- Belloc, Alexis. 1888. La Télégraphie Historique: den from sight of French forces, also con- Depuis les Temps les Plus Recules Jusqu’a nos nected the strong points and eased courier Jours. Paris: Fermin Didot. and postal connections. Napoleon’s infa- Chandler, David G. 1966. The Campaigns of Napoleon. New York: Scribners. mous retreat from Moscow in 1812 was ham- Esdaille, Charles. 2001. The French Wars, pered by, among many other things, poor 1792–1815. London: Routledge. visibility and thus limited semaphore com- munication links.

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Fletcher, Ian. 2003. The Lines of Torres Vedras and Measurements,” often referenced as 1809–11. Wellingborough, UK: Osprey “Circular 74.” NBS also published an influ- (Fortress 7). ential text, The Principles Underlying Radio Koenig, Duane. 1944. “Telegraphs and Telegrams in Revolutionary France.” The Communication, which helped train a gener- Scientific Monthly LIX (December): 431–437. ation of radio engineers and operators. Norsk Telemuseum. Home page. [Online After the 1918 armistice, the government information; retrieved January 2005.] reduced the overall NBS budget but ex - http://www.norsktele.museum.no/ panded its radio research. During the 1920s, mambo/content/view/255/155/. bureau scientists created a refined quartz oscillator to keep stations on frequency, explored long-distance shortwave transmis- National Bureau of Standards sion, began broadcasting standard time sig- (NBS), National Institute of nals, and developed radio guidance systems Standards and Technology (NIST) for both the Navy and Army Air Corps. Staff members also served as advisers to the newly formed Federal Radio Commission The National Institute of Standards and and designed a circuit that allowed home Technology (NIST) was founded as the radios to use current from the power grid National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in 1901 rather than a battery. in order to maintain a system of weights and Between 1940 and 1946, NBS worked with measures for the United States. Like many a both the Army and Navy to develop the new government agency, the bureau was LORAN (long range) radio navigation sys- formed by expanding a division of an estab- tem, the radio proximity fuse, and the radio lished office, the Coast and Geodetic Sur- tracking of weather fronts. In the years fol- vey, which had strong ties to the American lowing World War II, the bureau was a major military and a clear interest in communica- center of research on digital computers and tion. Survey scientists had helped develop digital communication. NBS provided funds the electrical telegraph as a communications for the construction of the first UNIVAC and tool and an instrument for determining lon- produced a series of memos that outlined a gitudinal differences. system of long-distance digital communica- During the first decade of the twentieth tion between computers. century, NBS personnel began working on Following a 1954 review of operations, the electrical standards: the standard volt, the bureau relinquished its military research units standard ohm, and the standard ampere. In and directed its focus to civilian problems. 1911, this work led to an investigation of Most communications research continued wireless telegraphy. The most pressing prob- untouched at a new radio propagation labo- lems of the day involved signal interference, ratory in Boulder, Colorado. In 1965, the bulk transmitting and detecting signals in a fixed of this laboratory was removed from NBS frequency band, and radio direction finders. and placed under the control of the Environ- NBS expanded its radio research during mental Science Services Administration, and World War I and worked closely with both still later (1978) the National Telecommunica- the Army Signal Corps and the Naval Radio tions and Information Administration. Laboratory. It created a detailed standard Renamed in 1988 as the National Institute for for radio broadcasting, the “National Bureau Standards and Technology, NIST continued to of Standards Circular on Radio Instruments

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conduct some research on measuring and military and civilian officials with effective detecting communications signals at Boulder telecommunications links and coordinates and at a central facility, constructed in 1964, in planning for and provision of national secu- Gaithersburg, Maryland. rity and emergency preparedness communi- David Alan Grier cations for the federal government under all See also Computer; National Telecommunica- circumstances, including crisis or emergency, tions and Information Administration attack, and system recovery. (NTIA); Navy Radio Laboratory; Quartz NCS can be traced back to the October Crystal for Radio Control 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when communi- Sources cations problems threatened to further com- Aspray, William, and Michael Gunderloy. 1989. plicate events. After the showdown between “Early Computing and Numerical Analysis the United States and the Soviet Union, the at the National Bureau of Standards.” IEEE National Security Council formed an inter- Annals of the History of Computing 11(1): departmental committee to examine exist- 3–12. ing networks and needed changes. The Cochrane, Rexmond. 1974. Measure for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards. result was the formation of NCS on 21 Washington, DC: Government Printing August 1963 to coordinate a unified com- Office. munications system to serve the president, National Bureau of Standards. 1922. The Princi- Department of Defense, diplomatic and ples Underlying Radio Communication. intelligence activities, and other federal lead- Washington, DC: U.S. Army Signal Corps. ers. NCS was assigned to direct communica- National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2000. A Century of Excellence in Measurements, tions for the federal government under all Standards, and Technology: A Chronicle of conditions ranging from normal to national Selected NBS/NIST Publications, 1901–2000. emergencies and international crises, includ- NIST Special Publication 958. Washington, ing nuclear attack. The agency was to focus DC: Government Printing Office. especially on system interconnectivity and Perry, John. 1955. The Story of Standards. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. survivability. The Defense Communications Pursell, Caroll. 1968. “A Preface to Government Agency served as the executive agent. On Support of Research and Development.” 3 April 1984, President Ronald Reagan Technology and Culture 9: 145–164. expanded NCS into an interagency group Schooley, James. 2000. Responding to National of twenty-three federal departments and Needs: The National Bureau of Standards agencies. NCS began coordinating and plan- Becomes the National Institute of Standards and Technology (1969–1993). NIST Special Publica- ning national security and emergency pre- tion 955. Washington, DC: Government paredness (NS/EP) telecommunications Printing Office. during crises, natural disasters, and human- itarian aid efforts. NCS is also involved in training military and civilian personnel for National Communications System NS/EP communications needs. On 1 March (NCS) 2003 NCS was made a part of the new Department of Homeland Security. The National Communications System (NCS) NCS and its industry partners (including, supports the American president and senior for example, amateur radio operators) trig-

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gered a series of emergency response actions 1940 at the instigation of Vannevar Bush, a immediately after the terrorist attacks of 11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) September 2001, and again after the disas- electrical engineer. The committee consisted trous hurricanes of mid-2005. The Govern- of a dozen senior academic scientists, repre- ment Emergency Telecommunications System sentatives of the military, and a few officers and Telecommunications Service Priority of major industries. It evaluated the research programs of NCS were vital in helping to needs of the country’s war effort, recruited restore emergency telecommunications in scientists or companies qualified to do the these situations. NCS has also evaluated scientific work, and offered them contracts to ways to deploy wireless priority access ser- do the work. These contracts, which had vice in selected metropolitan areas and even- rarely been used before the war to fund sci- tually across the country. This allows NS/EP ence, would state the goals for the research users in emergencies to gain access to the and the resources that the government next available wireless channel without pre- would provide. They left the scientists free to empting calls already in progress. determine how the research would be con- Danny Johnson ducted. In its six years of operation, NDRC See also Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Defense negotiated 2,300 contracts worth a half- Communications System (DCS); billion dollars with 321 private companies Hotline/Direct Communications Link and 142 academic institutions. (DCL); National Security Agency (NSA); Initially, NDRC was organized in five divi- White House Communications Agency sions: A for armor and ordnance; B for (WHCA) bombs, fuels, and chemicals; C for communi- Sources cations; D for detectors and controls; and E Barrett, Steve. 2003. “National Communications for external relations and patents. Division C System Joins Homeland Security Depart- was overseen by Frank Jewett, president of ment.” American Forces Press Service, Bell Telephone Laboratories and the National March 10. Academy of Sciences. This division worked Lake, Timothy L. 2004. Reliable and Relevant with the largest research contractors of the National Communications System. Strategy Research Project. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. war (outside of the Manhattan Project), Army War College. including the Radiation Laboratory of MIT, National Communications System. [Online AT&T’s Western Electric, RCA, and the Cal- information; retrieved November 2005.] ifornia Institute of Technology. It helped http://www.ncs.gov/index.html. develop microwave radar, secure voice com- munication systems, radio jamming systems, the Combat Information Center, the LORAN National Defense Research navigation system, electromechanical com- Committee (NDRC) puting devices, and aircraft communications systems. The National Defense Research Committee The bulk of NDRC research was con- (NDRC) was a U.S. government agency that ducted in the northeastern segment of the oversaw scientific research for the military United States, the area that contained most during World War II. It was created in June of its major universities and corporate head-

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quarters. The research was often given to plans. However, by April 1945, he had begun graduate students or young professors, who demobilization in earnest. He transferred used the opportunities to become leaders in certain crucial OSRD contracts to the Army scientific communication. Most of the re - and Navy before terminating the remainder. search for aircraft communications systems During the last days of the organization, was done at the Harvard University Psycho- scientists attempted to establish a similar Acoustic Laboratory by a new engineer organization, the Research Board for named Leo Beranek. After the war, Beranek National Security, to guide postwar science. used his NDRC contacts to found a research This organization lasted barely a year before company named BBN. BBN quickly became collapsing. In 1950, five years after the clo- a leading consulting firm on acoustics issues. sure of OSRD, the government founded the It eventually developed substantial expertise National Science Foundation as the coun- in computer communication and created try’s peacetime scientific agency. much of the early technology for what David Alan Grier became DARPANET. See also Airplanes; Bell Telephone Laboratories In May 1941, NDRC became part of the (BTL); Bush, Vannevar (1890–1974); Combat Office of Scientific Research and Develop- Information Center (CIC); DARPANET; ment (OSRD), a coordinating body that Jamming reported to the government’s Office of Emer- Sources gency Management. Bush, who became Baxter, James Phinney III. 1946. Scientists head of OSRD, appointed Harvard Univer- Against Time. Boston: Little, Brown. sity President James Conant as the new Genuth, Joel. 1988. “Microwave Radar, the director of the NDRC. In November 1943, Atomic Bomb, and the Background to U.S. Conant reorganized NDRC into nineteen Research Priorities in World War II.” Science, divisions. Division 13 dealt with electronic Technology and Human Values 13 (3–4): 276–289. communication, Division 14 with radar, and Gruber, Carol. 1995. “The Overhead System in Division 15 with radio coordination. By 1944 Government-Sponsored Academic Science: NDRC reached its largest extent with 1,400 Origins and Early Development.” Historical staff members and 450 scientists as technical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, volunteers, headquartered at the Carnegie 25 (2): 241–268. Institution in Washington DC. Owens, Larry. 1994. “The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World The key figure in both NDRC and OSRD, War: Vannevar Bush and the Office of Vannevar Bush, was by nature a conserva- Scientific Research and Development.” tive man who distrusted government intru- Business History Review 68: 515–576. sion in the scientific process. He intended Stewart, Irvin. 1948. Organizing Scientific that the OSRD would be a temporary Research for War. Boston: Little, Brown. agency. In September 1944, he notified all divisions that OSRD would go out of busi- ness after defeat of Germany, which he National Reconnaissance Office assumed might happen as early as Novem- (NRO) ber 15. The Battle of the Bulge, in which the German army temporarily repulsed Allied The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) troops in December 1944, delayed Bush’s is a combined activity of the U.S. Depart-

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ment of Defense (DoD) and the Central Intel- 1970s, and the renewed arms race of the ligence Agency (CIA). As part of the fifteen- 1980s, NRO remained a classified organiza- member U.S. Intelligence Community, it is tion as it continued to develop, build, and staffed by DoD and CIA personnel and is operate advanced space-based intelligence responsible for the research, development, systems. acquisition, and operation of innovative However, in recent years, NRO took a space reconnaissance systems to support series of actions declassifying some of its global information gathering. National and operations. Its existence was finally acknowl- military leaders use data obtained from NRO edged in September 1992, followed by the satellites to plan and prosecute military location of its headquarters in Chantilly, Vir- actions, as well as to monitor weapons of ginia, in 1994. In February 1995, CORONA, mass destruction programs, track terrorists, a photo reconnaissance satellite program in enforce arms control and environmental operation from 1960 to 1972, was declassified treaties, and assess the impact of natural and and 800,000 CORONA images were trans- manmade disasters. NRO is funded through ferred to the National Archives and Records the National Reconnaissance Program, Administration. In December 1996, NRO which, in turn, is part of the National Foreign announced for the first time, in advance, the Intelligence Program. launch of a reconnaissance satellite. NRO was created following months of NRO is organized into five operational intense controversy between the White directorates: Signals Intelligence, Imagery House, CIA, DoD, and U.S. Air Force over Intelligence, Advanced Systems and Tech- the allocation of responsibilities for satellite nology, Communications Systems Acquisi- reconnaissance. In the aftermath of the May tion, and the Office of Space Launch. The 1960 downing of an American U-2 spy plane director of NRO reports to the secretary of over the Soviet Union, President Dwight defense who, in concert with the director of Eisenhower directed the intelligence com- central intelligence, has ultimate manage- munity to develop recommendations on the ment and operational responsibility for the future of space-based intelligence collection. agency. NRO’s programs and activities are The subsequent report to the National Secu- overseen by six congressional committees: rity Council on 25 August 1960 marked the House Permanent and Senate Select Com- formation of NRO. mittees on Intelligence, House and Senate The principal decision to form a “national” Appropriations Committees, House National agency was to ensure that the interests of all Security Committee, and Senate Armed Ser- parties, including the military and civilian vices Committee. intelligence communities, would be repre- Brett F. Woods sented in the utilization of space systems. See also Communication Satellites; Signals For the next thirty-one years NRO’s very Intelligence (SIGINT) existence was classified secret, and, except for the DoD directive that served as a charter, its Sources name or initials could not be used in any Handberg, Roger. 2000. Seeking New World government document that did not carry a Vistas: The Militarization of Space. Westport, CT: Praeger. special security classification. Throughout Richelson, Jeffery T. 1999. The U.S. Intelligence the Cold War of the 1960s, the détente of the Community. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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Worden, Simon P., and John E. Shaw. 2002. Millikan, the chair of the council, for example, “Whither Space Power? Forging a Strategy studied radio propagation as a reserve officer for the New Century.” Maxwell Air Force in the Army Signal Corps. During the war, Base, AL: Air University Press. the council surveyed the stock of the nation’s laboratories and scientists and advised the American military on possible research National Research Council (NRC) opportunities. After the war, the council was reorganized The National Research Council (NRC) is the “to stimulate research in the mathematical, operational arm of the National Academy physical, and biological sciences.” It raised of Sciences. The academy was founded in funds for postdoctoral fellowships and, in 1863 as an independent organization that the process, built strong ties with the would bring the best American scientists Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations. It also into a single institution where they might organized small committees to survey the share the results of their work. As part of its literature of specific scientific disciplines and charter, the academy was charged, “when- recommend research strategies. The mem- ever called upon by any department of the bers of these committees were usually not Government, [to] investigate, examine, members of the academy but university sci- experiment, and report upon any subject of entists who volunteered their services for science or art.” However, during the nine- this work. Among the reports prepared by teenth century, the academy was consumed these committees were papers on radio com- with internal issues and offered little advice munications, radar, and nuclear fission. to the government. During the 1930s, NRC tried to develop a The academy formed NRC in 1916, in research facility but failed to gain congres- anticipation of American involvement in sional support. At the start of World War II, World War I. The two scientists most instru- NRC created two new organizations to direct mental in forming the council, physicist research: the National Defense Research Robert A. Millikan and astronomer George Committee and the Office of Scientific Ellery Hale, had also helped the academy Research and Development. In 1950 the gov- develop ties to academies of science in ernment chose to fund scientific research Europe and recognized that these organiza- through the National Science Foundation tions took a more active role than the Amer- and directed NRC to survey scientific en- ican academy in directing scientific research. deavors and recommend strategies for re - NRC included academic scientists, represen- search. Increasingly, the council took up tatives of the industrial giants engaged in problems from the fields of medicine and research (notably American Telephone & engineering. The National Academy of Sci- Telegraph, General Electric, and Dupont ence was joined by the National Academy of Nemours), and key military officers. Engineering in 1964 and the Institute of The purpose of the council was not to con- Medicine in 1970. By the start of the twenty- duct research. During World War I, most sci- first century, NRC was producing about 350 entific research was undertaken by university reports a year, based on requests from Con- scientists who held reserve military commis- gress, the military, the National Science sions and worked at government facilities.

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Foundation, and other offices of the Ameri- The mid-1952 Brownell Committee report can government. to President Harry Truman called for unifi- David Alan Grier cation of all U.S. communications intelli- See also American Telephone & Telegraph Co. gence activities. Formation of the committee (AT&T); Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); grew out of dissatisfaction with the Korean National Defense Research Committee War activities of the existing Armed Forces (NDRC) Security Agency, which had been set up just Sources three years earlier to combine the work of the Bugos, Glenn. 1980. “Managing Cooperative military services. As a result of the commit- Research and Borderland Science in the tee’s recommendations, NSA was estab- National Research Council.” Historical lished late in 1952 at Arlington Hall, just Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences outside Washington DC. It moved to new 20: 1–32. headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland Christman, Albert B. 1971. Sailors, Scientists and Rockets. Washington, DC: Naval History (between Washington and Baltimore), in Center. 1957 and has been expanding and upgrading Cochrane, Rexmond. 1963. The National Academy them ever since. In 1972, the Central Security of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, Service (CSS) was formed to promote a 1863–1963. Washington, DC: National closer partnership between NSA and the Academy of Sciences. cryptologic elements of the armed services Dupree, Hunter. 1957. “The Founding of the National Academy of Sciences, A Reinterpre- (the director of NSA is also chief of CSS). To tation.” Proceedings of the American Philosophi- record and preserve its history and that of its cal Society 101: 434–440. predecessors, NSA established the National Kevles, Daniel. 1968. “George Ellery Hale, the Cryptologic Museum and research facility First World War and the Advancement of at Fort Meade, which opened to the public in Science in America.” Isis 59 (4): 427–437. Kevles, Daniel. 1971. “Federal Legislation for 1993. Engineering Experiment Station: The NSA has three primary missions: to de - Episode of World War I.” Technology and velop means to better protect information Culture 12 (2): 182–189. infrastructures critical to U.S. security; to Reingold, Nathan. 1977. “The Case of the exploit, collect, and process intercepted for- Disappearing Laboratory.” American eign communication signals or signals intel- Quarterly 29: 79–101. ligence (SIGINT); and to train personnel for operations security. NSA produces SIGINT National Security Agency (NSA) as specified by the director of central intel- ligence and the National Foreign Intelligence The National Security Agency (NSA) has for Board. NSA “customers” include the White a half-century been the chief American cryp- House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, component tologic organization. The largest such orga- military commands, multinational forces, nization in the world with nearly 40,000 and U.S. allies. employees (15,000 of whom are civilian), its NSA seeks ways to better protect infor- director, a flag-rank military officer, reports mation and communications thought critical to an assistant secretary of defense. NSA has to the country’s security. NSA develops tech- more budget and personnel than the better- nologies that allow policy makers and mili- known Central Intelligence Agency. tary commanders to communicate free of

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concern over being heard by foreign intelli- alty of that war was working for NSA). NSA- gence agencies. Military command-and-con- generated SIGINT was central to military trol systems are designed and produced by operations in central Europe in the mid- NSA. To do this NSA employs many of the 1990s and in Afghanistan and Iraq in the country’s top cryptologists, mathematicians, early 2000s. computer scientists, physicists, linguists, In order to effectively intercept and researchers, engineers, and related positions. decode foreign signals, NSA established A decade after its formation, NSA faced its numerous monitoring stations around the most serious crisis during the October 1962 world and also in satellite orbit. This global Cuban missile confrontation with the Soviet eavesdropping network is interconnected Union. Signals intelligence crucially con- with those of selected foreign intelligence tributed to the human and photographic agencies such as those of Britain, Canada, intelligence findings that have been long Australia, and New Zealand. This “UKUSA” known. Pressure to rapidly decode Cuban network assigns each participating agency a and Soviet information led to the first separate section of the globe. NSA monitors twenty-four-hour command center. Intercep- Russia and related states east of the Ural tion came from ground stations, aircraft cir- Mountains and most of the Americas; Britain cling the island, and the USS Oxford SIGINT monitors Europe, Africa, and Russia west of collection vessel. SIGINT provided the first the Urals, and Australia monitors the South indications that Soviet ships were turning Pacific and Southeast Asia. The largest NSA back before reaching a U.S. Navy blockade, overseas monitoring station is at Menwith and that possible war had been averted. Hill, in Yorkshire, England. With access to Later SIGINT results showed the “other Britain’s communication networks, it has side” standing down as well. twenty-two satellite terminals and about five Another American SIGINT surveillance acres of buildings. The network is intercon- vessel, the Liberty, was tuning in Egyptian nected with the Echelon computer software and Israeli military signals during their 1967 system. Every monitoring center in the war when the vessel was attacked and UKUSA network is equipped with its own nearly sunk by Israeli aircraft (34 were killed, supercomputer capable of processing all the 171 injured). A potential international inci- information intercepted there and filtering dent was largely hushed up. A similar vessel, out communications that match certain the Pueblo, was tuning military information search parameters. off shore from North Korea in December of Given continuing and ever-faster advances the same year when she was boarded and in technology, NSA’s job has become steadily taken, though in international waters. A more complex. High-end encryption tech- good deal of secret NSA material was cap- nologies previously available only to govern- tured before it could be destroyed, and the ments can often be obtained today at American crew was held for months. relatively low cost—indeed, encryption soft- NSA code breakers played a central part in ware can be found on the Internet at no cost. later conflicts as well. Airborne and ground The huge increase in the number of cell SIGINT played a substantial role during the phones, e-mails, fax machines, and other long Vietnam War (the first American casu- means of electronic communication and their

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increasing speed of transmission adds greatly National Security Agency. Home page. [Online to the challenge of monitoring the ever- information; retrieved April 2007.] www increasing volume of information exchange. .nsa.gov. This volume caused NSA supercomputers to overload and stop processing for three-and- a-half days in early 2000. Technological National Telecommunications advances are reducing the advantage that and Information Administration NSA once held. Fiber optic cables, for exam- (NTIA) ple, carry huge amounts of information yet The National Telecommunications and Infor- are extremely difficult to intercept without mation Administration (NTIA) is the U.S. physical access to the cables. For several president’s chief adviser on telecommuni- years, NSA has been working to substan- cation and information policies. It also tially expand its research and development controls electromagnetic spectrum allo- efforts into development of new code-break- cations for the federal government, in - ing technologies. cluding the Department of Defense and the Once totally secretive (NSA was jokingly individual military services. said to stand for “no such agency”) and NTIA was created as an agency within the sometimes dubbed “Crypto City,” NSA has Department of Commerce in 1978 in a reorga- become better known as it seeks to recruit nization of telecommunications functions the best and brightest to its code-breaking within the executive branch of the federal and protection missions. government. NTIA combined functions of the Arthur M. Holst and Christopher H. Sterling White House’s former Office of Telecommu- See also Arlington Hall; Code Breaking; nications Policy (OTP) and the Commerce Communications Security (COMSEC); Computer; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Fort Department’s Office of Telecommunications Meade, Maryland; Intelligence Ships; Signal (OT). Formed in 1970, OTP had been respon- Security Agency (SSA, 1943–1949), Signals sible for telecommunications policy making Intelligence (SIGINT) and radio spectrum management on behalf of Sources the president. OT provided staff support for Bamford, James. 1982. The Puzzle Palace: A OTP’s spectrum management, including fre- Report on America’s Most Secret Agency. quency allocation and assignment, as well as Boston: Houghton Mifflin. technical research and analysis. All of this Bamford, James. 2001. Body of Secrets: Anatomy transferred to NTIA. of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. New York: Random House. NTIA activities are directed by an assistant Brownell, George A. n.d. The Origin and Develop- secretary of commerce. The agency has ment of the National Security Agency. Laguna nearly 300 employees (quite small by federal Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. standards) and operates a laboratory facility, Center for Cryptologic History. 1998. NSA and the National Institute for Telecommunica- the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History. tion Sciences, in Boulder, Colorado. It is con- National Security Agency. 2002. Cryptologic cerned with both domestic and international Excellence: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Fort policy issues. Meade, MD: National Security Agency. NTIA houses the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC), which advises

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the agency on telecommunications policy, National Telecommunications and Information technical, and other matters affecting fed- Administration. “Welcome to NTIA.” eral agencies using spectrum. Operating [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/. since 1922, it now comprises representatives from some twenty federal agencies (includ- ing the military services) and has observers Native American Signaling from several more, including the Federal Communications Commission, which rep- Native Americans made effective use of tra- resents all private and state government ditional modes of communication, includ- spectrum users. IRAC reviews major radio ing fire, smoke, and couriers. Two specific systems planned by federal agencies to seventeenth-century examples demonstrate ensure that they comply with applicable especially effective signaling methods to technical standards and can be supported in coordinate multiple attacks on encroaching the frequency bands their proponents plan to European colonies. use. IRAC also coordinates federal space The first took place in Virginia in 1622, satellite systems with other domestic and and was apparently years in the planning. foreign satellites. Tribes in the tidewater region were all acces- Of most immediate concern to the military sible by water—both Indian and European is NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management settlements in the tidewater were usually (OSM), which oversees and coordinates fed- built near rivers—as well as by traditional eral agency spectrum use. Understandably a couriers carrying memorized messages. good deal of what it does is classified. But However, a much more sophisticated signal overall, OSM issues policy regarding alloca- triggered the 1622 attack. Early planning tions and regulations governing federal took place at funeral ceremonies for a chief in spectrum use; develops plans for both peace- which all of the tribes participated. This sup- time and wartime use of spectrum; partici- plied perfect cover for tribal war planning pates in international radio conferences; that would eventually lead to the 1622 attack assigns frequencies for federal agency users; and another uprising in 1644. and participates in all aspects of the federal The tactical problem was how to surprise government’s communications-related emer- the English colonists with simultaneous gency readiness activities. It also publishes strikes in several locations. The Native and frequently revises the official U.S. fre- American leader apparently synchronized quency allocation chart. his colonywide ambush by using Native Christopher H. Sterling American sensitivity to the moon’s changing See also Spectrum Management appearance as an ingenious low-tech signal- ing system. The first visible crescent moon in Sources a month’s lunar cycle appeared twenty-one National Telecommunications and Information days before both the 1622 and the 1644 Administration, Office of Spectrum attacks. Attuned to the lunar cycle, Native Management. Home page. [Online Americans could simply count the number information; retrieved April 2007.] http:// www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/osmhome of days between one moon phase and the .html. next, even if bad weather obscured the sky.

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The means to synchronize the multitarget untie one knot from the cord, and when the strike was thus a reliable natural phenome- last knot was untied, that would be the sig- non of which native people were already nal for them to rise in unison against the aware. On the night of 1 March 1622, the Spaniards. The day for the attack had been new moon rose over the Virginia colony. fixed for 11 August 1680, but the Spaniards Exactly twenty-one days later, the attack learned of the revolt after capturing two came as a stunning surprise as Indians Tesuque Pueblo youths entrusted with carry- swarmed over the unsuspecting English ing the message to the pueblos. Popé then with weapons they had hidden ahead of ordered the execution of the plot on 10 time in haystacks, barns, kitchens, and sta- August, before the uprising could be put bles. It was the worst attack the English in down. the colony had ever suffered. Although the Such signaling methods, though in the Indians successfully interrupted settlement end fruitless, demonstrated considerable for a short time, the attack did nothing to ingenuity as well as social cohesion. shake growing English domination of the Kerric S. Harvey region. See also Ancient Signals; Couriers; In a final, desperate effort to halt the oblit- Fire/Flame/Torch; Maori Signaling; Smoke eration of his people and their way of life, two decades later the same leader tried the Sources same trick again. And again it was tactically Acker, Lewis F. 1939. “Communication Systems successful. On 18 April 1644, again twenty- of the American Indian.” Signal Corps Bulletin 103 January–March: 63–70. one days after the appearance of the first Aveni, Anthony. 2005. “How Was ‘The Tyme visible crescent moon, the ambush was Appointed’?” Colonial Williamsburg Journal 27 repeated. This time close to 500 white settlers (4): 27–32. died, but that was a much smaller propor- Fauze, J. Frederick. 2006. “The First Act of tion of the growing British population, and Terrorism in English America.” [Online article; retrieved September 2006.] http:// the overall impact on the burgeoning colony www.hnn.us/articles/19085.html. was almost negligible. Ponce, Pedro, 2002. “Trouble for the Spanish: Decades later and more than 2,000 miles to The Pueblo Revolt of 1680.” Humanities 23 the west, Pueblo Indians rose up against (November–December): 6. Spanish occupiers of what is now New Mex- ico. One of the revered Pueblo medicine men, Popé, survived capture by Spanish Naval Radio Stations/Service authorities in 1675 and began to plot ways to overthrow the colonizers. Within five years, Growing out of recommendations in 1904, in his plans matured. To ensure that many the years before and during World War I the Pueblos would act at the same time, Popé U.S. Navy constructed an extensive chain of dispatched runners to the various pueblos, fifty medium- and high-powered radio shore each courier carrying a knotted cord, with stations along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts the number of knots signifying the number and in Alaska, Panama, Hawaii, and the of days remaining until the chosen day of Philippines. They were not built to a com- attack. Each day the Pueblo leaders were to mon plan but rather as needs dictated. Some

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operated only for a short time, and as signal ranges increased they were shut down in favor of others. Intended primarily for com- munications with the fleet, they often shared similar designs and facilities (though power varied from 2 to 100 kw). As technology was in constant flux, their transmitters were reg- ularly upgraded or replaced. Other than the several stations located at Navy yards, the transmitters handled commercial wireless work if a private transmitter was not avail- able. Most broadcast time signals in Morse code coordinated from the Naval Observa- tory in Washington DC as well as weather reports. From 1913 until 1941, the Navy operated radio station NAA from “Radio” (Arling- ton), Virginia. It was the first and chief facil- ity among the chain. Construction began in 1912 on a low hill acquired from neighboring Fort Myer, Virginia (the same year the Navy dropped use of the term “wireless” in favor of “radio”). As completed, the facility con- This early-twentieth-century postcard shows the three sisted of one 600-foot, four-leg, self-support- tall wireless towers at the Naval Radio Station at ing steel antenna tower and two others of “Radio” (Arlington), Virginia. This facility formed the 450 feet (soon dubbed “the three sisters”; headquarters of an expansive network of similar budget limitations had prevented building stations at American naval bases around the world by all three to the 600-foot height) arranged to 1920. (Courtesy Christopher H. Sterling) form a triangle about 350 feet on a side. Two substantial two-story buildings, one housing the transmitter and the other for reception facility established voice communication and operation spaces plus living quarters, with Panama, Honolulu, and—a first for completed the station. transatlantic service—Paris. Used for these December saw installation of a Fessenden signals was a 3,000-watt transmitter made by 100 kw synchronous rotary spark transmit- Western Electric, using about 500 small vac- ter, which was to be compared with a 30 kw uum tubes on a frequency of 50 kHz. Yet the Poulson arc transmitter. Initial results same year, NAA ceased its role as a reception showed the latter to be a more effective facility with establishment of “Radio Cen- transmitter. On 13 February 1913 the station tral” in the State, War, and Navy building was commissioned and was soon testing sig- next to the White House. From then on NAA nals (on 12 kHz) with a transmitter on the was operated remotely as a transmitting Eiffel Tower in Paris as well as Marconi sta- operation only. tions in Britain and Ireland. During October As with several of the other stations, NAA 1915, AT&T experimenters at the Arlington transmitted calibrated time signals twice a

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day, and weather forecasts even more often. structed in the Territory of Alaska, in the These were intended chiefly for vessels at sea Pribilof and Aleutian island chains. and by 1927 were going out on shortwave The transmitter near the Naval Academy bands as well as the original low frequency. at Annapolis, for example, went on the air on In 1922, two 200-foot antenna towers were 6 August 1918 as station NSS using two added, for a total of eight towers. A vacuum antenna towers. The Annapolis transmitters tube transmitter was placed into use in mid- operated in conjunction with a large antenna 1925, replacing the older spark equipment. receiver facility at Cheltenham, Maryland. Beginning in early 1923, NAA transmitted Two additional towers were added in 1922. music and other programs (from the Navy In August 1938, the erection of three “Eiffel Yard in downtown Washington) at select Towers” was completed. In 1941, a 50-kw times in the broadcast band (690 kHz). By transmitter was installed and high-frequency the late 1920s, station NAA (as well as NAL operations established; the station was used at the Navy Yard and NSS in Annapolis) was for all communications with the Atlantic being operated from Radio Central, which Fleet during World War II. Extensive modi- had been relocated to the Navy Building in fication of the antenna system was begun in downtown Washington. 1969. The four 600-foot radio towers were By the late 1930s, however, the facility had demolished to make way for a new commu- become outmoded by rapid changes in radio nications link with vessels of the Atlantic technology and may have been used for bur- Fleet. A new 1,200-foot guyed center tower ial of obsolete ammunition and chemicals. was erected and surrounded with nine 600- The antenna towers were dismantled in 1940 foot towers (three of which were identical to as they endangered approaches to the new those erected in 1917). The modified towers National Airport, less than two miles away covered about 200 acres. As need for the on the Potomac River. (Some sources suggest facility declined, the station was closed at least one was reassembled at the Naval down. At the end of 1999, sixteen of the nine- Academy at Annapolis, and only replaced in teen radio towers were demolished with the the late 1990s.) The rest of the station was remaining three turned over to Maryland decommissioned in mid-1956, though the authorities for telecommunications or train- two buildings (and more recent shorter ing purposes. antennas) remain and are used by the Naval stations were also constructed in Defense Communications Agency. The call San Juan, Puerto Rico, and at Guantanamo letters NAA were later applied to a very low Bay in Cuba; at Honolulu; on the islands of frequency (VLF) Navy station in Maine. Guam and Samoa; and two in the Philip- Twenty-one U.S. Navy stations were pines (at Cavite and Olongapo). Stations in located along the Atlantic Coast from Port- Panama were built on both the Atlantic and land, Maine, south to Key West, and in Pen- Pacific ends of the canal that had opened for sacola, New Orleans, and the Texas coast shipping in 1913. The station at Colon, along the Gulf, several of them built at Navy Panama, began operating in 1904 and was yards. Along the Pacific coast, nine stations rebuilt in 1915; the one at Darien, Panama, were built from San Diego in the south all opened in 1912. A Balboa, Panama, trans- the way up to the Bremerton Navy Yard in mitter was added a year later. Three free- Washington. Seven other stations were con- standing antenna towers at Darien were 600 feet high; those at Balboa half as tall.

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As modes of telecommunication steadily Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) improved, many of these Navy coastal sta- tions, designed in an era of spark-gap wire- The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was less telegraphy transmission, were upgraded established in 1923 and has been the pri- to vacuum tube technology while others mary home of U.S. Navy research efforts were closed down. As the effective range of since. radio increased, many of the stations became NRL was created at the suggestion of the redundant. The need for shore stations had Naval Consulting Board, chaired in the early largely diminished before World War II, 1920s by American inventor Thomas Edi- though some remained active in that period. son. The board included specialists from Virtually all are gone today, or converted to eleven major American technical societies very different uses. who reviewed new inventions for their Christopher H. Sterling potential military applications. The board See also Defense Communications Agency recommended that the U.S. Navy maintain (DCA, 1960–1991); Fessenden, Reginald A. its own industrial-style research laboratory, (1866–1932); Fort Myer, Virginia; Hooper, which was organized in 1923 at Washington Stanford C. (1884–1995); Morse Code; DC as the Naval Experimental and Research Radio; U.S. Navy; Vacuum Tube; World Laboratory. War I Originally consisting of three sections, Sources Sound, Metallurgy, and Radio, the labora- Bullard, W. H. G. 1915. “The Naval Radio tory incorporated into its Radio Division Service: Its Development, Public Service, and both the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory Commercial Work.” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 3 (March): 7–28. and the Radio Test Shop, which dated from Bullard, W. H. G. 1916. “Arlington Radio World War I. The Naval Experimental and Station and Its Activities in the General Research Laboratory pioneered the devel- Scheme of Naval Radio Communication.” opment of high-frequency radio equipment Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 4 during the mid-1920s, and in 1929 it demon- (October): 421–447. Crenshaw, R. S. 1916. “The Naval Radio Stations strated the long-distance capabilities of such of the Panama Canal Zone.” U.S. Naval devices in transcontinental transmissions, Institute Proceedings 42 (July–August): including broadcasts from Antarctica. The 1210–1218. laboratory supported and evaluated both Hooper, S. C. 1929. “Naval Communications— basic and applied research, including among Radio Washington.” Proceedings of the its projects research utilizing data developed Institute of Radio Engineers 17 (September): 1595–1620. during the late 1930s on atomic fission. The Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- laboratory, by then given its present title Electronics in the United States Navy. (NRL), began experiments to assess nuclear Washington, DC: Government Printing fission as a potential power source for sub- Office. marines. Just before the United States Todd, David W. 1911. “The Navy’s Coast Signal Service.” Journal of the American Society of entered World War II, NRL, which had been Naval Engineers 23 (November): 1092–1116. administered by the Office of the Secretary of Todd, David W. 1913. “The Arlington Radio the Navy, was transferred to the Navy’s Station.” Journal of the American Society of Bureau of Ships. Naval Engineers, 25 (February): 60–80.

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NRL’s World War II programs, imple- near Sugar Grove, West Virginia, was termi- mented by a staff of 4,400 working on 900 nated in 1962, but NRL activities already projects, focused on immediately applicable occupied a key location within the National innovations for America’s naval fleets. Radio Quiet Zone. Established by the Fed- Under Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, eral Communications Commission in 1958, in 1945 NRL interests again expanded to the zone covers more than 13,000 square encompass basic research. A broad program miles in Virginia and West Virginia and is rel- of research and development was initiated to atively free of electromagnetic interference. study the Navy’s operational environments. In 1965 NRL’s share of the zone was con- Work performed in NRL facilities was sup- verted to support monitoring of foreign and plemented by research performed under ship-to-shore communications traffic. Con- contracts at American universities. High- struction of two enormous arrays for captur- priority programs included development of ing high-frequency signals was completed in radar-absorbing materials; stress testing; and 1969. The Sugar Grove installation became new formulations for metals, paints, and known as NAVRADSTA (Naval Radio Sta- polymers, as well as research on radiation tion) Sugar Grove. safety monitoring and nuclear fission– NRL scientists made several crucial break- based propulsion systems for submarines. throughs in communications, location, and Bureaucratic changes in 1946 strengthened navigation technologies. Innovations in- the NRL program. The laboratory, while cluded voice processing algorithms for reduced to just 1,100 professional staff, was secure voice communication, high-frequency placed within the Navy’s Office of Naval radar, missile launch and nuclear explosion Research (ONR), which was given the same detection systems, satellite-based terrain and status within the Department of the Navy as weather imaging equipment, and, in 1977, in its powerful bureaus. ONR included over- cooperation with the Air Force, the first satel- seas offices, an international scientific and lite-based global positioning system (GPS), technical monitoring service, and several known as Navigation Satellite Timing and laboratories in addition to NRL. However, Ranging, or NAVSTAR. post–Korean War federal funding cuts and Utilization of high-frequency communica- changing defense priorities that highlighted tions systems by America’s Cold War rivals the U.S. Air Force’s strategic bombers, mis- declined during the 1980s, and the Sugar siles, and satellites put the Navy and NRL at Grove arrays became less critical to signals a disadvantage. The Navy’s own satellite intelligence gathering. They were finally project, known as Vanguard, developed at deactivated in the late 1990s. The Navy, NRL, proved a technical failure and left the however, maintained the Sugar Grove site Navy far behind the Air Force. NRL veterans as a monitoring facility for satellite commu- of the Vanguard program formed the core nications and renamed it the Navy Informa- staff of the National Aeronautics and Space tion Operations Command (NIOC)–Sugar Administration when it was established in Grove. The complex now hosts sophisticated 1958. equipment for satellite communications NRL research opened a new era in 1959 as monitoring, as well as intelligence specialists it began work on a radio telescope for space from the U.S. Air Force, the National Security research. Research for this system, based Agency, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Published analyses agree that NIOC–Sugar in Washington. This later became the Naval Grove continues to be a key installation in Communication Station Washington DC, and the Anglo-American Echelon signals intelli- in September 1950 it became the Naval Secu- gence system. rity Station. It would remain the center of Laura M. Calkins naval communications intelligence until 1995. See also Communication Satellites; Global A closer alliance with Army and Air Force Positioning System (GPS); National Security cryptologists was formalized in 1949 with the Agency (NSA); Navy Radio Laboratory; establishment of the Armed Forces Security Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Agency. On 28 January 1950 the following functional organizations were designated as Sources the Naval Security Group: Communications Gebhard, Louis A. 1979. Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Supplementary Activities, Communications Research Laboratory. NRL Report 8300. Security Activities, and Special Electronics Washington, DC: Government Printing Search Projects. The Navy signals intelli- Office. gence unit did yeoman work during the Keefe, Patrick Radden. 2005. Chatter: Dispatches Korean War (1950–1953). In 1953 the organi- from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping. zation, now designated as the Naval Security New York: Random House. Naval Research News. 1996. “Office of Naval Group, included naval communication units, Research 50th Anniversary.” Naval Research security group departments of Naval Com- News Special issue, XLVIII: 1. munication Stations, naval security detach- Rath, Bhatka, and Don J. De Young. 1998. “The ments, and registered (classified) publication Naval Research Laboratory: 75 Years of issuing offices. Materials Innovation.” Journal of Materials 50: 7, 14–17. In 1956, the U.S. Naval Security Group Richelson, Jeffrey. 2000. “Desperately Seeking Headquarters activity was established. The Signals.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 56: 2, Naval Security Group Command, reporting 47–51. directly to the chief of Naval Operations, Sapolsky, Harvey M. 1990. Science and the Navy: was activated on l July 1968. The Naval Secu- The History of the Office of Naval Research. rity Group moved from the Naval Security Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Station north to Fort Meade, Maryland, in November 1995. Naval Security Group (NSG) In 2003 the former Nebraska Avenue com- munications complex became the new home The Naval Security Group (NSG), with some of the Department of Homeland Security. variance in title, had charge of U.S. Navy Two years later, the separate Naval Security communications intelligence activities for Group Command was disbanded (30 Sep- more than a half–century. It followed and tember 2005) and aligned with the Naval built on the important signals intelligence Network Warfare Command based in Nor- activities of the OP-20-G organization before folk, Virginia. and during World War II. Christopher H. Sterling Early in 1943, OP-20-G moved from the See also Korean War (1950–1953); National Army-Navy Building on Constitution Avenue Security Agency (NSA); Nebraska Avenue, in Washington DC to the new Communication Washington DC; OP-20-G; Signals Intelli- gence (SIGINT) Supplementary Annex on Nebraska Avenue

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Sources and submarines was done manually. The Grobmeier, Al. 2006 “Naval Security Group NTDS was the Navy’s first step to automate History.” [Online article; retrieved April this information flow for use in either attack 2006.] http://coldwar-c4i.net/NSG/ NAVSECGRU-history.html. or defense, to reduce the chance of error and Safford, Laurance, and J. N. Wenger. 1994. U.S. to allow ship commanders to cope with a Naval Communications Intelligence Activities. more complex and faster-moving threat Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. environment. The NTDS and wireless data links allowed ships to readily share informa- tion with other elements of a task force. Naval Tactical Data System Installation of the first test system aboard (NTDS) three vessels began in late 1961, followed by a six-month operational evaluation. Equip- The Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was ment and program reliability varied greatly— a computerized information processing sys- sometimes the programs failed several times tem developed by the U.S. Navy in the in the course of a single day. But testing con- 1950s, approved for implementation in 1956, tinued and bugs were worked out. Early in and first deployed in the mid-1960s for use 1963, the improved NTDS system was in combat ships. In service into the 1990s, the ordered installed on other fighting ships. Five NTDS was the first digital system installed NTDS-equipped ships were at sea within a on any American naval vessel, as well as in year, ten by the end of 1965, with twenty-two a number of foreign fleets. It paved the way more systems being installed. Partially due to for the full integration of digital systems the space requirements for radar and combat throughout American combat vessels. information center installations, implementa- UNIVAC developed the transistorized tion focused first on larger vessels—carriers hardware and Seymour Cray (later famous and cruisers. for developing a line of supercomputers) Over the next several years, as the Navy was a critical figure in designing the original became increasingly involved in operations NTDS system architecture. Before installing off Vietnam, the system was modified to fit anything on a combat ship, the Bureau of other uses (for example, the Marines devel- Ships’ Naval Electronics Laboratory worked oped the Marine Tactical Data System, and out system mockups and then began to lay antisubmarine patrol aircraft utilized the Air- out components in a shore facility. Early in borne Tactical Data System, both NTDS- 1961 computer training classes began for compatible systems). And other navies, most officers who would be assigned to operate particularly Britain’s Royal Navy and the the NTDS. Two ships, the newly built guided smaller fleets of Canada, Belgium, and the missile frigates King and Mahon, were desig- Netherlands, were developing their own nated for the first shipboard installations, similar systems at the same time. The allied along with the carrier Oriskany and the services worked together in sharing equip- guided missile cruiser Long Beach. ment and operational ideas, and variations Until the advent of computers compact of the NTDS were often installed, as hap- and robust enough to be used aboard ships pened later with German, French, Italian, at sea, collection (and display) of information and Japanese naval units. In all, by the late about the position of nearby aircraft, ships, 1980s, forty-two foreign ships were carry-

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ing the NTDS along with 175 American communications, based on war require- vessels. ments, to meet the needs of naval operating Naturally the system evolved as comput- forces. The term “telecommunications” is ers and related equipment were improved. now taken to include all types of information Consoles and display units became more systems in which electric or electromagnetic capable, as did other components. Successful signals are used to transmit information operation of the NTDS in combat conditions between or among points. off Vietnam helped to reduce the last of As with other military services, the Navy naval resistance to the needed changes that realized that commercial off-the-shelf in- the technology represented. By the late formation technology (IT) was mature 1980s, follow-on systems, under the rubric of enough that the Navy could depend on it, Advanced Combat Direction System, were rather than building and operating its own progressively replacing NTDS installations. separate system. The Navy also realized that Christopher H. Sterling IT infrastructure could be treated like a util- See also Combat Information Center (CIC); ity that someone else capitalized, operated, Computer; Transistor; U.S. Navy and maintained. Today’s Naval Telecommu- nications System (NTS) comprises all the Source end-terminal processing equipment, trans - Boslaugh, David L. 1999. When Computers Went mission, switching, cryptographic, and con- to Sea: The Digitization of the United States trol devices used to transmit operational Navy. Los Alamitos, CA: The IEEE Computer Society. information in the Navy. It provides electri- cal and optical communications to all naval forces under its command. The NTS is used primarily to exercise command and control Navy Commands and Systems over naval operating forces at sea (not the shore establishment, which is served Changing U.S. Navy communications orga- through the Defense Communications Sys- nizations and systems over the years have tem). The Naval Communications Process- often been confusing, made more so by ever ing and Routing System is an automated more complex names (and their sometimes system that serves as the interface between odd abbreviations). Unlike the Army Signal shore networks and operational units of the Corps or the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy Navy. has usually lacked a single command struc- In 1986, the Naval Telecommunication ture overseeing all of its communication sys- Command became the chief communications tems and needs. unit within the service. In 1993 it was Regular organizational and related nom - renamed the Naval Computer and Telecom- enclature changes afflict all military services, munications Command, and in 2001 changed and while some modifications may some- again, becoming the Naval Network and times seem inconsistent or even whimsical, Space Operations Command (NNSOC). they also reflect broadened responsibilities. NNSOC was also the result of a merger of Regardless of name, the mission of naval the Naval Space Command and the Naval communications has always been to provide Network Operations Command, the latter and maintain reliable, secure, and rapid formed only one year earlier.

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On 1 May 2002, the Navy formed the assigned naval tactical radio frequencies and Naval Network Warfare Command (NET- disseminate interference information. WARCOM) as the headquarters for opera- Global Command and Control System– tional decisions and directions, with a global Maritime (formerly the Navy Tactical Com- staff of 7,000. The establishment of NET- mand System–Afloat) is the system by WARCOM reflected the Navy’s recognition which all Navy seagoing forces maintain a that networks are warfare enablers, and are common operational picture. This system thus becoming increasingly important. NET- enables the warfare commander to exercise WARCOM is responsible for coordinating effective command. The Navy/Marine all information technology, information Corps Intranet (NMCI) is an unclassified operations, and space requirements and wide-area network that is (or is being) operations within the Navy. It controls installed at all U.S. Navy shore commands. twenty-three subordinate selected naval The system is intended to improve efficiency information technology/information opera- and security by having all Navy e-mail tions or organizations. These include the accounts maintained centrally. EDS won the Naval Network and Space Operations Com- contract for NMCI in the 1990s, but the sys- mand based in Dahlgren, Virginia; the Fleet tem has cost billions of dollars and been Information Warfare Command in Norfolk, plagued by problems. NETWARCOM serves Virginia; and the Navy Component Task as program administrator. Force Computer Network Defense in Wash- Implementation of “Copernicus” architec- ington DC. ture has contributed to this major restructur- The U.S. Navy divides the world into four ing of U.S. Navy command, control, operational communications areas: Western communications, computers, and intelli- Pacific headquartered on the island of gence systems to place the operator at the Guam; Eastern Pacific in Honolulu; Atlantic center of the command-and-control process. in Norfolk, Virginia; and the Mediterranean Rather than “push” data to the battle in Naples, Italy. All communications activi- group/battle commander, data are collected, ties within each area are under the opera- correlated, and melded to efficiently dissem- tional control of a Naval Computer and inate them when required. Copernicus uses Telecommunications Area Master Station existing communications systems and equip- (NCTAMS). These master stations (the one in ment and a communication support system Oahu dates to a Pearl Harbor predecessor (CSS) to integrate naval communications that first aired in 1906) are the primary key- assets. The CSS is the communications sub- ing stations for their region, are the entry architecture that provides multimedia access points for Navy tactical satellite systems, and media sharing, permitting users to share and operate and maintain one or more total network capacity on a priority demand Defense Satellite Communications System basis in accordance with a tactical comman- terminals. The NCTAMSs include fleet der’s communications plan. Communica- telecommunications operations serving as tions pathways are automatically selected the focal point for fleet communications sup- as needed rather than dedicated, making the port. While all NCTAMSs have similar oper- transmission medium invisible to the user. ational capabilities, no two have identical Christopher H. Sterling facilities. They also control the use of

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See also Defense Communications System its facilities, while development of antennas (DCS); National Communications System and measurements of atmospheric factors (NCS); Naval Radio Stations/Service; was performed in the field and aboard ships. Satellite Communications; U.S. Navy Laboratory personnel kept abreast of techni- Sources cal innovations in the fast-changing radio GlobalSecurity.org. 2005. “NCTAMS PAC, field, as private companies moved quickly to Wahiawa, Hawaii.” [Online information; introduce radio equipment of all types into retrieved January 2007.] http://www the American and European markets. The .globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ Navy also had security concerns about wahiawa.htm. Naval Network Warfare Command. Home Britain’s development of a worldwide cable- page. [Online iinformation; retrieved January based communications system, so one key 2007.] http://www.netwarcom.navy.mil/. area of research at the Radio Laboratory involved producing and measuring radio signal strength over long distances and Navy Radio Laboratory point-to-point transmission and reception. A Congressionally mandated reorganiza- The U.S. Navy’s earliest activities with radio tion of the Navy Department in 1910 pro- date from 1899. Naval research into uses of duced a decision to divide oversight of naval radio waves was assigned to the Navy’s radio-related activities: Naval radio commu- Bureau of Equipment in 1903. As experimen- nications, including operations, land-based tation with radio increased, private entrepre- stations, and fleet requirements became the neurs, foreign governments, and the U.S. province of the Division of Operations, while military all saw multiple applications for the radio equipment, maintenance, and research new technology. Efforts by the federal gov- were housed in the Bureau of Steam Engi- ernment and by international organizations neering. The Navy Radio Laboratory was to create control structures for frequency placed within the latter, which also had a usage, wireless telegraphy, and radio com- Radio Telegraphy Division; this became the munications in the early 1900s added Radio Division in 1917, when the Naval Air- urgency to the Navy’s research and manage- craft Radio Laboratory was also created to ment activities. Hoping to use radio-based research shortwave radio for use in naval communications in both on-shore installa- aviation. With the leadership of the Navy tions and ships of the fleet, the Navy devel- Radio Laboratory, the Steam Engineering oped research initiatives to improve the Division introduced the Navy’s first orga- reliability, distance, security, and speed of nized plan for radio frequency allocation radio message traffic. In 1908 the U.S. Naval and usage. Specific frequencies were desig- Wireless Telegraphic Laboratory, later known nated for “calling” purposes in the short-, as the U.S. Navy Radio Laboratory, was orga- medium-, and long-wave bandwidths, and nized. Its equipment, quarters, and personnel increasingly reliable transmission and recep- were obtained from the research wing of the tion of messages between naval vessels was U.S. Bureau of Standards. achieved. The new laboratory conducted precision By 1912 sufficient long-distance signal experimental work with receivers, circuit strength and reception accuracy had been efficiency, and wavelength measurements in measured by laboratory personnel to per-

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mit a major initiative in radio traffic develop- Douglas, Susan J. 1985. “Technological Innova- ment by the Navy. The Navy requested con- tion and Organizational Change: The gressional funding of $1 million to construct Navy’s Adoption of Radio, 1899–1919.” In Military Enterprise and Technology Change: a high-powered network of wireless com- Perspectives on the American Experience, edited munications stations in the Pacific that by Merritt Roe Smith. Cambridge MA: MIT would use arc transmitters, which utilized Press. “continuous wave” transmissions. This tech- Douglas, Susan J. 1987. Inventing American nology made long-range signal transmission Broadcasting, 1899–1922. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. practicable, and the Navy proposed to build Hammond, P. H. 1944. “The U.S. Navy Radio ground-based transmission and reception and Sound Laboratory.” Journal of Applied stations in Virginia, California, Hawaii, Physics 15 (3): 240–242. Samoa, Guam, and the Philippines. The first Howeth, Linwood S. 1963. History of Communi- station to become operational was at La cations-Electronics in the United States Navy. Playa Naval Coaling Station, a facility for- Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. merly owned by the U.S. Army, which was Yeang, Chen-Pang. 2004. “Scientific Fact of also the Navy’s first installation in San Engineering Specification? The US Navy’s Diego. Experiments on Wireless Telegraphy circa In 1920 the Bureau of Steam Engineering 1910.” Technology and Culture 45: 1–29. was renamed the Bureau of Engineering, and in yet another reorganization in 1930, its Radio Division became the Radio and Sound Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC Division and a part of the Navy’s new Bureau of Ships. The Navy Radio Laboratory The building complex at 3801 Nebraska Ave. was also renamed the Navy Radio and NW has played a large part in signals intel- Sound Laboratory. During the 1930s and ligence and even the development of the World War II, the laboratory focused much computer. For over a half-century it housed of its research effort on evaluating under- the U.S. Navy’s communications and sig- water radio and sound waves, eventually nals intelligence operations. testing and modifying submarine-based The Mount Vernon Seminary, a private communications and countermeasure tech- finishing school and later a college for nologies as well as radio wave-based harbor women, opened in Washington DC in 1875 and surface ship defense systems. In 1947 the and moved to new buildings on Nebraska laboratory was merged with elements of the Avenue in 1917. The college campus doubled University of California’s Division of War from 15 to 31 acres in 1928 as more buildings Research to become part of the Navy Elec- went up. With the onset of World War II, tronics Laboratory. however, many sites in the Washington area Laura M. Calkins (this one is 5 miles from downtown, located See also National Bureau of Standards (NBS), across from American University) were National Institute of Standards and Technol- taken over for military needs. In 1942, the ogy (NIST); Naval Radio Stations/Service; seminary property, including all of its dormi- Naval Research Laboratory (NRL); Radio; tories and classrooms, became one of these, U.S. Navy; Wireless Telegraph Board taken over by the Navy. (The school was Sources reimbursed two years later, and in

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1945 purchased land on Foxhall Road for a war to preserve their secrets; today a few new campus with the same name. It remains are on exhibit in museums. there today, since 1999 a part of George The Nebraska Avenue location was named Washington University.) At the same time, the Navy’s Communications Supplementary the Army was taking over another women’s Annex in February 1943 (it was renamed school, Arlington Hall, for its own signals NAVCOMMSTA—for Naval Communica- intelligence operation. tion Station—Washington on 7 July 1948, and The number of employees increased the Naval Security Station on 21 September steadily during the war, growing at least 1950). The site remained a naval facility for fivefold. As the amount of code-breaking six decades (though the communications activity increased (including all theaters of intelligence units moved to Fort Meade, war, not just the Pacific), so did the need for Maryland, in 1995), transferring to the then mechanical assistance if messages were Office of Homeland Security in 2003, and going to be broken on any schedule to be becoming headquarters for the cabinet-level worthwhile to military and naval planners. Department of Homeland Security a year That led to the “Bombe” project—the build- later. In 1994, what had been the Naval Secu- ing of dozens and then hundreds of electro- rity Station District was identified as a his- mechanical machines used to solve each toric property, and it is listed in the National day’s Enigma cipher settings. Without the Register of Historic Places, administered by bombes, Allied code breakers would have the National Park Service. been overwhelmed. Christopher H. Sterling Originally developed in Poland and per- See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; fected in Britain, many bombes were made Enigma; Magic; Naval Security Group in the United States, with its greater manu- (NSG); OP-20-G; Polish Code Breaking; facturing capacity and freedom from enemy Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra attack. The American version was designed Sources in great secrecy at Dayton, Ohio, in the facil- MSN Groups. 2003. “3801 Nebraska Avenue.” ities of National Cash Register, with the [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] resulting machines being installed in the http://groups.msn.com/ctoseadogs/3801 newly constructed Building 4 on Nebraska .msnw. Avenue. By 1945, 121 of the clanking 5,000- Wilcox, Jennifer. 2001. Solving the Enigma: pound machines (which had cost about $6 History of the Cryptanalytic Bombe. Fort Meade, MD: National Security Agency, million to manufacture) were operating on Center for Cryptologic History. two floors, all of them operated by some 600 members of the naval women’s auxiliary— thus bringing women back to the site of the seminary. Running twenty-four hours a day, Network Enterprise Technology the bombes helped greatly to speed the read- Command (NETCOM) ing of Enigma-coded U-boat messages as well as Bletchley Park’s “Hut 6” coded traf- Headquartered at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, fic. Improved models had been steadily the Network Enterprise Technology Com- introduced. Most were destroyed after the mand (NETCOM) is the central executive institution responsible for the full spectrum of

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U.S. Army “infostructure” and integrates Router Network, video teleconferencing ground forces’ command, control, communi- capabilities, and voice telephone. cation, and computers. It was established in NETCOM/9th ASC is an important agent October 2002, when the 9th Army Signal Com- of a secure all-embracing information net- mand was renamed as Network Enterprise work that is being built by the Pentagon, Technology Command and the 9th Army Sig- known as the Global Information Grid nal Command (NETCOM/9th ASC). Its cre- (GIG), which interconnects communications ation was part of the Army Knowledge at strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Management Strategy with the aim of trans- NETCOM’s task is to ensure that the Army’s forming itself into a network-centric and segment of the GIG is protected (from hack- knowledge-based service. The origins of NET- ers, viruses, worms, etc.) and on hand when- COM/9th ASC, however, can be traced back ever and wherever necessary. NETCOM to 1918 and the setting up of the 9th Service operates, engineers, integrates, sustains, and Company in Hawaii, which over time was protects the LandWarNet, the Army’s por- subject to a number of reorganizations. tion (in terms of networks) of the GIG. NETCOM was established as the single The 11th Signal Brigade is crucial for NET- authority assigned to operate and manage the COM’s operations. It consists of three tacti- Army’s information network infrastructure at cal and one strategic battalion. The latter is the enterprise level. It provides central techni- the brigade’s interface with the GIG. The cal control over all functions associated with brigade possesses the only tri-band termi- Army networks. Its mission also includes nals in the Army, which allow it to use both management and protection of the Army military and commercial satellite terminals. frequency spectrum. It provides critical com- The brigade’s soldiers were deployed in munication means also for nonmilitary gov- eight different countries in 2006. Its great ernmental agencies in support of emergency advantage is data package capability, where operations, for example, during hurricanes combinations of multiplexers, firewalls, and subsequent relief actions. NET COM is a servers, and hardware are packaged and global organization comprising approxi- ready for prompt transportation. mately 14,000 soldiers and civilians at 104 Although when the Iraq War began in sites around the world. It possesses strategic March 2003 NETCOM had been functional tactical entry point sites in South America for only six months, it proved to be success- and along the Pacific Rim so that the “sun ful in securing safe and on-time communica- never sets on NETCOM operations.” tion for the Army. Cooperating with other services, NET- As an element of overall Pentagon trans- COM provides timely distribution of critical formation toward network-centric warfare, information. It acts in response to instant NETCOM faces some challenges generally demands to set up communication services associated with the evolution of the Ameri- in distant places. For command, control, and can way of war. The two greatest ones are combat purposes it is capable of quickly the constant improvement of network de- extending such services as e-mail, the Secret fense and securing appropriate technology Internet Protocol Router Network, the Un - upgrades. classified but Sensitive Internet Protocol ?ukasz Kamie?ski

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See also Army Battle Command System sant with the latest military techniques in (ABCS); Army Signal Corps; Fort Huachuca, telegraphy, he arrived in New Zealand in Arizona; Global Infor mation Grid (GIG); 1863, during the Second New Zealand War Information Revolution in Military Affairs (IRMA); Iraq War (2003–Present); “System between British and Maori forces. On 11 of Systems” March 1863, Brodie and others commenced construction of a military telegraph line from Sources the Albert barracks in Auckland to Queens Clarke, Patrick E. 2003. “Sun Never Sets on Redoubt, about 35 miles to the south. They NETCOM Operations.” Military Information utilized local resources and the assistance of Technology 7 (8). Available at http://www .military-information-technology.com/ selected infantry personnel to lay more than article.cfm?DocID=231. 100 miles of line from Auckland to Te Awa- GlobalSecurity.org. 2005. “Network Command mutu, including a spur to Cambridge, in lit- History.” [Online information; retrieved tle more than a year. Telegraph stations at the December 2006.] http://www.global various armed posts into the Waikato were security.org/military/agency/army/ manned by army telegraphists. Brodie’s tele- netcom-history.htm. GlobalSecurity.org. “Network Enterprise graph line was in constant use, providing a Technology Command.” [Online informa- vital link from the campaign directly back to tion; retrieved December 2006.] http:// Auckland through hostile territory. When www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/ military operations in the area concluded, army/asc.htm. the troops turned over the telegraph line to “Network Operator: Interview with Brigadier General Carroll F. Pollett, Commander civilian authorities on 30 September 1866. Army Network Enterprise Technology Military signaling continued to the end of Command 9th Army Signal Command.” the nineteenth century within the armed 2005. Military Information Technology 9 (8). constabulary and volunteer engineers. It was Available at http://www.military- not until 1905, however, that signaling de- information-technology.com/article tachments were added to volunteer infantry .cfm?DocID=1184. U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology and cycle units. The Cycle and Signaling Command/9th Army Signal Command. Corps was established in 1909 as the first [Online information; retrieved December dedicated signal unit in New Zealand. It was 2006.] http://www.netcom.army.mil/. one of several similar units that, by 1 July 1913, became the New Zealand Divisional Signal Company. Two years earlier, the New New Zealand: Royal New Zealand Zealand Post and Telegraph Corps had been Corps of Signals formed and it soon provided very highly trained civilian telegraphists. This became a New Zealand military communications part of the New Zealand Engineers Signal began with Maori systems in ancient times. Service on 1 July 1913. Modern signaling systems date to the 1860s New Zealand engineer signals troops par- and expanded through both world wars as ticipated in the capture of German Samoa in New Zealand signalers worked around the August 1914. The Divisional Signal Com- world. pany saw service in Gallipoli and in Egypt Corporal Alexander Brodie of the Royal before moving on to France in 1916. New Engineers is considered to be the father of Zealand has the only signal corps that can New Zealand army signaling. Fully conver- boast a Victoria Cross (V.C.) winner. Corpo-

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ral Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett won his Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Signals V.C. for conspicuous bravery during the Gal- Incorporated. lipoli campaign. The Mounted Signal Troop Borman, C.A. 1954. Divisional Signals. Welling- ton, New Zealand: War History Branch served at Gallipoli, and later operated in Department of Internal Affairs. Palestine. A New Zealand wireless troop Ellis, Roy F. 1968. By Wires to Victory. Auckland: served in Mesopotamia and Persia with the 1st NZEF Divisional Signal Company, War Australians in a combined wireless signal History Committee. squadron. On 1 June 1921, the New Zealand History of the New Zealand Engineers. 1927. Wanganui, New Zealand: Evans, Cobb and Corps of Signals was formed from the New Sharpe Ltd. Zealand Post and Telegraph Corps. During World War II, New Zealand signal regiments served in North Africa, Syria, Greece, Crete, Italy, and the Pacific. Coast Night Signals watchers were also established at many Pacific islands. A signals intercept section How to send visible signals at night was a was located at the Army Signal Company at complex problem in the period before electri- Wellington and intercepted Japanese Morse cal communication developed in the mid- signals, which were sent to Brisbane to be nineteenth century. The usual means of decoded. In 1945, a signal company was sent visual signaling (flags, smoke) or even to Japan as part of the British Common- pigeons to carry messages, were of little use wealth Occupation Force. during hours of darkness. For centuries, mil- King George VI granted the New Zealand itary signalers working at night were limited Corps of Signals the prefix “Royal” on 12 to traditional resources such as couriers (on July 1947. The Royal New Zealand Corps of foot or horseback) or some means of gener- Signals provided two signal troop units for ating sound signals. the Korean War (1950–1953). During the lat- In ancient times, means of generating ter half of the twentieth century the corps sound included horns and drums, while sent personnel to Malaya, Borneo, and Sin- light modes included torches (later, lanterns). gapore, and on many peacekeeping duties But neither was good for signaling over around the world including Rhodesia, Sinai, more than a few miles—and that only under Bosnia, and Cambodia, Iraq, and Afghanis- good conditions (fog could do them all in). tan. A number of signal detachments were By the late Middle Ages, gunfire could also also sent to the Southwest Pacific, in partic- be used for sound signaling. Some handheld ular, East Timor. visual signals could be used to communicate Cliff Lord at night by adding lanterns—but again, only for relatively short distances. Distress rock- See also Australia: Royal Australian Corps of Signals; Maori Signaling; Signals Intelligence ets, first developed in the early eighteenth (SIGINT); United Kingdom: Royal Corps of century, could also be applied to military Signals nighttime signaling needs. Trumpet or bugle calls were utilized also. Well into the nine- Sources teenth century, such traditional methods Barber, Laurie, and Cliff Lord. 1996. Swift and were about all commanders could call on, Sure: A History of the Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals and Army Signalling in New and reliance on human couriers (and occa- sionally animals, especially dogs—but usu-

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 338 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Communications ally not birds, which were more suitable to Information Systems Agency daytime use) remained essential. As technology created new options in the The North Atlantic Treaty Organization mid-nineteenth century, however, new (NATO) Communications & Information visual methods appeared, including signal Systems Agency (NCSA) was formed only in flares (Coston signals) and other pyrotech- 2004 but has an involved history going back nics; blinking colored lights (Ardois lights), to the 1970s. When NATO was founded, it which were soon electrified; and even large relied initially on signals services provided electrical searchlights for signaling to and by the United States and Britain. from ships at sea, or from coastlines out to Over the past three decades, there have sea. Night signals using balls of red and been numerous restructurings of the vari- green fire shot from a pistol appeared in ous NATO communications organizations. 1877, their arrangement in groups denoting The first specialized communications and numbers that had a prearranged code signif- information entity was the NATO Integrated icance. Star shells of different colors, as well Communications Systems Central Operat- as rockets to carry tactical messages, were ing Authority, established to control, operate, widely used in World War I, especially in the and maintain NATO communications. These final year, as were lights dropped from air- included the Initial Voice Switched Network, craft. Naval vessels made widespread use of Telegraph Automated Relay Equipment, shutter light signaling in both world wars. Status Control Alerting and Reporting Sys- The arrival in the mid-nineteenth century tem, satellite communications systems, and of the practical electric telegraph—followed the ACE High Tropospheric Scatter trunk later in the century by the telephone and communication network. With changing finally wireless/radio—largely eliminated technologies by the early 1990s, it became most day-night signaling differences. necessary to reorganize. This coincided with Christopher H. Sterling a major restructuring of NATO to take See also Ardois Light; Artillery/Gunfire; Color; advantage of the “peace dividend” with the Coston Signals; Couriers; Fire/Flame/Torch; end of the Cold War. In 1993 the NATO Com- Lights and Beacons; Music Signals; Search- munication and Information Systems Oper- lights/Signal Blinkers; Signal Rockets; ating and Support Agency (NACOSA) was Telegraph formed by adding some elements of the Sources Communications and Information Systems Niblack, A. P. 1892. “Naval Signaling.” U.S. Division of the Supreme Headquarters Naval Institute Proceedings 18: 431–505. Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Soon it Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical became apparent that further streamlining to Communication Techniques. Orlando, FL: improve management and control and to Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno trim staffing was needed. NACOSA took Press, 1974). command of four subordinate elements including the Integrated System Support Centre; Allied Command Europe Communi- North Atlantic Treaty cations Security; NATO Communication and Organization (NATO) Information Systems School at Latina, Italy; Communications & and Regional Signal Group SHAPE. In the

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following years, NACOSA developed into Consultation, Command and Control Board an organization with responsibilities for the for executing general policy decisions asso- operation and support of communication ciated with provision of communication and and information systems on both sides of information services throughout NATO. the Atlantic and all NATO operations. NCSA personnel provide technical advice; By 1997 multiple factors (including the install equipment; conduct hardware and arrival of new systems and technology, software maintenance; configure and con- lessons learned in operations in the Balkans, trol networks; and train personnel on NATO the introduction of “Partners for Peace,” and communications and information systems. NATO’s study of its long-term needs) led They also provide secure computer network, again to NACOSA reorganization. Its charter telephone, and videoconference services to was redefined and remained in force until the International Assistance Force in 2003, when, after yet another study, the Afghanistan, the NATO Training Mission in North Atlantic Council endorsed further Iraq, units in the Balkans, and disaster relief change. All of NATO’s fragmented commu- operations such as for a 2005 earthquake in nication and information service elements Pakistan. They also provide secure and non- were integrated into a centralized organiza- secure computer, telephone, and videocon- tion designed to separate customers from ference services to NATO’s headquarters in suppliers. All deployable communication Europe, North America, and Asia. and information service capabilities were Danny Johnson combined in two NATO signal battalions See also Canada; Eastern Europe; France: Air and became part of the new NCSA. Created Force; France: Army; France: Navy; were the NATO Signal Battalion North Germany: Air Force; Germany: Army; (Army) in Brunssum, Netherlands, and the Germany: Navy; Greece; United Kingdom: NATO Signal Battalion South (Navy) in Royal Air Force; United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; United Kingdom: Royal Naples, Italy. Each has four deployable com- Navy; Warsaw Pact munication modules, comparable in size and mandate to signals companies. Source NATO Communication and Information NCSA’s 3,000 military and civilian per- Systems Services Agency. Home page. sonnel provide service to NATO and [Online information; retrieved August national customers. The central staff is co- 2006.] http://www.ncsa.nato.int/ located with SHAPE in Mons, Belgium. The index_sm.htm. NCSA director is accountable to NATO’s

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Office of Strategic Services (OSS) from New York in February 1942, and within three months, FIS was broadcasting in The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was twenty-seven languages around the clock. developed in mid-1942 from the Coordinator Soon, FIS had begun utilizing news items of Information (COI), established a year ear- from Axis countries in a very effective lier. This legendary and highly controver- propaganda/intelligence initiative. When sial intelligence agency, ancestor of today’s COI became the Office of Strategic Services Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), operated in June 1942, FIS transferred to the Office of until September 1945 under the direction of War Information. Colonel (later Major General) William “Wild In September 1942, Donovan established Bill” Donovan, a charismatic New York the OSS Communications Branch, which attorney who had been a highly decorated was eventually responsible for communica- infantry officer during World War I. tions training of agents. Divisions took Most COI/OSS personnel were civilians. charge of a wide range of technical support Under COI, the Radio News and Features issues, to include sound and light modes of Division of the Foreign Information Service signaling as well as radio. The branch pro- (FIS) provided (beginning in August 1941) vided equipment for code transmission, background information concerning events reception, and interception. One important in Europe to eleven U.S. shortwave sta- example was its “Joan/Eleanor” ground- tions—all but one in the northeastern United to-air FM transmission system first used in States—for use as they saw fit. At first, FIS late 1944 behind the lines in the Netherlands. had no broadcasting capability of its own. By It used a tiny and highly focused vertically November 1941, the Radio Production Divi- directional transmitter signal (Eleanor) to sion was broadcasting abroad in seventeen reach a receiver (Joan) and wire recorder languages, and FIS had begun to analyze in a circling airplane. It was almost impossi- German radio transmissions. The first Voice ble to detect on the ground. The names for of America broadcast (in German) was made the small devices came from the OSS practice

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of assigning random female names for They appeared to succeed when President projects. Harry S. Truman abruptly terminated Dono- An OSS message center had responsibility van’s operations in September 1945 (the for all incoming and outgoing cable traffic. Research and Analysis Division survived as At first, commercial facilities were utilized, an agency of the State Department). Within but Army and Navy networks later transmit- a year after the war ended, however, the ted OSS messages abroad. The center’s oper- beginnings of what is now CIA were in place ations began with a staff of three clerks in when the Joint Chiefs realized that they were December 1941, but by the end of the war, not receiving as good communications and 530 persons (400 in the field) handled the other forms of intelligence as had been the activities of a code room, paraphrasing and case during World War II. distribution, teletype, typing room, mainte- Keir B. Sterling nance, and cryptographic security. The Com- See also Code, Codebook; Modulation; Signals munications Branch also had responsibilities Intelligence (SIGINT); World War II for technical support of direction-finding apparatus, while OSS’s Secret Intelligence Sources Division dealt with all intelligence issues. Chalou, George C., ed. 1992. The Secrets War: The By 1944, OSS was utilizing new high-speed Office of Strategic Services in World War II. Washington, DC: National Archives and enciphering and deciphering methods on a Records Administration. cable channel provided by Western Union. Katz, Barry M. 1989. Foreign Intelligence: Research Though radio listening stations in New York and Intelligence in the Office of Strategic and California had been established earlier, Services, 1942–1945. Cambridge, MA: the shortwave intelligence they collected did Harvard University Press. Roosevelt, Kermit, ed. 1976. War Report of the not come within the purview of the Commu- OSS (Office of Strategic Services), vol. I. New nications Branch, though the branch did York: Walker. maintain the stations after 1943. Troy, Thomas. 1981. Donovan and the CIA: A Donovan, who had originally persuaded History of the Central Intelligence Agency. President Franklin Roosevelt that the nation Lanham, MD: University Press of America. needed a centralized intelligence organiza- tion, faced a continuing challenge to main- tain the cohesiveness of his brainchild. While Ohio, USS COI had operated under the Office of the President, OSS was placed under the Joint In the early 1920s, the U.S. Navy converted an Chiefs of Staff. More traditionally oriented obsolete battleship, the USS Ohio, to use as an intelligence personnel in the uniformed ser- experimental vessel for the installation and vices and Federal Bureau of Investigation development of radio communications. Director J. Edgar Hoover resented this new Construction of the Ohio began 22 April entity. They made every effort to persuade 1899 and was completed 18 May 1901 as BB- Roosevelt to either limit the scope of OSS 12, part of a class of three vessels. The Navy operations (by ruling out OSS activities in commissioned her on 4 October 1904, at the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific The- which time she was designated flagship of the ater) or by transferring its work to the uni- Asiatic Fleet. After a fifteen-year career, in formed services. Their ultimate objective August 1919, the Ohio was turned over to the was to close OSS down. Bureau of Engineering to become an experi-

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mental radio ship. The purpose of designat- functioned to control the unmanned battle- ing the Ohio for such a task was to free up ship. Although the following day’s tests more modern battleships to save re sources failed because of problems aboard the Iowa, but still allow for needed experimentation the Navy had proven that a ship could be and development of radio communications. controlled by radio. After these tests the Ohio In Portsmouth, Virginia, the Navy removed continued with her duties until she was sold the battleship’s guns and refitted her with a for scrap in early 1922 as a condition of the series of new radio transmitter and receiver Washington naval treaties. systems. This work took nine months. The Charles A. Swann refit included converting two rooms below See also Hooper, Stanford C. (1884–1955); Navy decks into large radio facilities, designed to Radio Laboratory; U.S. Navy handle the new systems. One of the new rooms was fitted with transmitting equip- Sources ment; the other was fitted with new receiving Bauer, K. Jack, and Stephen S. Roberts. 1991. equipment. The Navy left the vessel’s original Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy 1775–1990: Major Combatants. Westport, CT: Greenwood radio room unchanged in order to process Press. routine traffic. As part of the refitting process, Howeth, Linwood S. 1963. History of Communi- the Navy added two antenna trunks to the cations-Electronics in the United States Navy. ship, positioned between the new radio Washington, DC: Government Printing rooms and the deck. One was made of steel, Office. the other of copper. An arrangement of top- masts, which could be varied in five-foot increments of height, was attached to the OP-20-G Ohio’s main cage masts in order to improve communication distances. OP-20-G was the primary U.S. Navy signals After her refit, the Navy placed the Ohio intelligence organization from 1922 until under the Naval Experimental Station. The after World War II. Navy interest in signals Ohio also was assigned a small crew in which intelligence began 28 July 1916 when a code every member played a vital role in carrying and signal section was established in the out the experiments. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. It The greatest benefit of the Ohio’s radio worked at breaking German naval codes. experiments came in the form of information Two years later, during World War I, the first about future radio installations. The Navy modern American codes were issued, copied learned a lot about antenna performance, after British codes used by the United States closed-circuit systems, and arc transmission during the war. After the armistice was techniques. signed (11 November 1918), an intelligence In addition, the Ohio assisted in a series of clerk from the cable censor’s office was experiments involving the USS Iowa. The transferred to the code and signals section Navy installed equipment designed by for research in the development of codes and inventor John H. Hammond to make the ciphers. It soon became apparent that to Ohio a control platform that could remotely learn the weakness of existing codes and control Iowa. On 21 June 1921, more than a ciphers (as well as how to construct secure hundred transmissions were sent to the Iowa ones), the first essential was to learn the at the range of about 8,000 yards, all of which basics of cryptanalysis. After the war, naval

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code activities were merged for several years Navy portion of radio intelligence was with the Army’s cipher bureau. assigned to the Office of Naval Communica- In July 1922, what had been the code and tions. On 11 March 1935, OP-20-G became a signals section was assigned the soon-to-be- part of the Communication Security Group. familiar organizational title OP-20-G. The OP-20-G personnel were intimately odd acronym came from the fact that the involved with breaking the continuing series new office was the 20th Division of the Office of Japanese naval and other codes in the of the Chief of Naval Operations, while the period leading up to World War II. They also “G” indicated the communications security played a central part in the development of section. A year later Laurance F. Safford first the SIGABA electric cipher machine that pro- became involved in communications intelli- vided unbreakable Allied communication gence. In 1923 the Office of Naval Intelli- links. In 1942, OP-20-G expanded into seven- gence requested that all ships of the Asiatic teen subsections and its chief became the Fleet forward intercepted Japanese and com- assistant director for communication intelli- mercial code messages. In 1924 (and possibly gence in the Office of Naval Communica- before), the naval radio station (dubbed sim- tions. Navy cryptologists were successful in ply “Station A”) at the Navy Purchasing breaking the latest Japanese naval code Office within the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai (dubbed JN-25 by the Allies) in time for the was intercepting and forwarding Japanese Battle of Midway in mid-1942, and were traffic. The naval radio station San Francisco instrumental in providing information for was also forwarding all official Japanese traf- the American fleet commander to defeat the fic to OP-20-G’s code and signals section. Japanese fleet. They also broke the Japanese Operations were limited by budget con- merchant shipping code, giving American straints in the late 1920s. A handful of officers submarines locations of Japanese ships. By and a small cadre of enlisted personnel war’s end, five-sixths of the Japanese mer- trained themselves in the specific skills and chant fleet was sunk. At the height of the knowledge of naval signals security. The war, nearly 10,000 naval specialists partici- enlisted intercept specialists who trained on pated in the worldwide activities of OP-20-G. the roof of the old Navy Department building Only after the war, in yet another reorga- in Washington DC became known as the “On- nization, did OP-20-G give way to what the-Roof Gang” and were the core of the became the Naval Security Group. vastly expanded effort during World War II. Christopher H. Sterling More listening and monitoring stations were See also Electric Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, opened—Station B in Guam and another in “SIGABA”); Magic; Midway, Battle of (3–6 Beijing, China. Station C was soon established June 1942); Naval Radio Stations/Service; at Subic Bay (it shifted location three times Naval Security Group (NSG); Nebraska before the Japanese occupation in 1942) in the Avenue, Washington DC; Pearl Harbor, Philippines. Additional stations (including Hawaii; Safford, Laurance F. (1890–1973); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) H, or Hypo, at Pearl Harbor) slowly followed as funds allowed. In early 1935, in accor- Sources dance with joint action of the Army and Benson, Robert Lewis. 1997. A History of U.S. Navy, radio intelligence was determined to Communications Intelligence During World War be a function of communications and the II: Policy and Administration. United States

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Cryptologic History, Series IV, Vol. 8. Fort Parker, Frederick D. 1994. Pearl Harbor Revisited: Meade, MD: National Security Agency. United States Navy Communications Intelli- Grobmeier, Al. 2006. “Naval Security Group gence, 1924–1941. United States Cryptologic History.” [Online article; retrieved April History, Series IV, Vol. 6. Fort Meade, MD: 2006.] http://coldwar-c4i.net/NSG/ National Security Agency. NAVSECGRU-history.html. Safford, Laurance, and J. N. Wenger. 1994. U.S. Lewin, Ronald. 1982. The American Magic: Codes, Naval Communications Intelligence Activities. Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan. New York: Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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Pearl Harbor, Hawaii batteries (the largest 16-inch guns could fire about 25 miles). This division of labor When the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked seemed a logical approach in 1940–1941. the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on The Army’s coastal defenses in Hawaii 7 December 1941, American forces were were extensive, designed to repel an taken by surprise, and losses of personnel attempted enemy landing. Batteries had (more than 2,200), ships, and aircraft were been built beginning early in the twentieth heavy. Numerous wartime and postwar century, largely to defend Honolulu and the investigations of the disaster focused in con- growing naval anchorage at Pearl Harbor siderable part on the poor state of communi- just west of the city. The Army Signal Corps’ cations between army and naval forces on fire control command and communications the island—and communication failures system employed on Oahu in late 1941 relied between Washington and Hawaii. There was on a series of subterranean telephone cables plenty of blame to go around in what some that ringed the island to provide a means of termed the worst failure of military commu- communicating with the numerous airfields, nications in the nation’s history. observation posts, and coastal gun batteries. The Army and Navy had divided up the Few of the coast defense fire control or outly- task of protecting Hawaii. The Navy’s ships ing base end stations were equipped with and aircraft were assigned to locate and radio, however, and only a few of the larger intercept any enemy naval force that might coastal gun batteries included radio capabil- be heading for Hawaii, out to a distance of ity. With its cable system, the Army’s Hawaii 500 miles from Oahu. The Army’s air arm command could communicate with its coast was assigned to patrol up to 20 miles off the defenses located around the perimeter of the coast, while the Army’s Coast Artillery was island and could telephone sightings of responsible for defending the islands (and enemy vessels, including elevation and range especially the Navy’s ships in Pearl Harbor) data, to the plotting rooms of the coastal to the maximum range of their fixed artillery gun batteries. Telephone links included

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Army airfields and support facilities as well which arrived after the attack was under- as an experimental radar installation on the way), and the almost nonexistent coopera- north side of Oahu, which detected and tion, let alone communication, among the reported the incoming Japanese aircraft on Army and naval commands on the island. the morning of 7 December, but was ignored. Lessons learned the hard way, however, The Navy’s communication (telephone and were quickly applied once the war began, as radio) facilities were totally separate and cooperation increased, resulting, among centered on the Pearl Harbor base, as were other victories, in the landmark Battle of links to Marine Corp facilities elsewhere on Midway just six months later. Oahu. Christopher H. Sterling Limited coordination between the services See also Coast Defense; Magic; Midway, Battle existed only at the jointly staffed Harbor of (3–6 June 1942); OP-20-G; Radio Silence; Entrance Control Post (HECP), which con- Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) trolled ships’ entry into Pearl Harbor. HECP Sources provided communication between the Prange, Gordon W., et al. 1981. At Dawn We island’s defense facilities and ships offshore, Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New either by signal flag, lights, or radio, depend- York: McGraw-Hill. ing on conditions. Fatally compromising all U.S. Congress. 1946. Investigation of the Pearl these efforts, as events would prove, how- Harbor Attack: Report. 79th Cong, 2d Sess, ever, was the lack of cooperation between Senate Document 244. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. the competitive Army and Navy commands. U.S. Congress. 1946. Pearl Harbor Attack: They often refused to share information or Hearings, Part 39: Reports, Findings, and intelligence and even lacked a common Conclusions of Roberts Commission, Army radio frequency with which to communicate Pearl Harbor Board, Navy Court of Inquiry, with each other at the time of the Japanese and Hewitt Inquiry. 79th Cong., 1st Sess. Washington, DC: Government Printing attack, and often had to rely on couriers. Office. Combined with the Japanese fleet’s effective Wohlstetter, Roberta. 1962. Pearl Harbor: use of radio silence, surprise was complete. Warning and Decision. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford The senior Army and naval officers, Gen- University Press. eral Walter C. Short and Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, respectively, were relieved of command in the immediate aftermath of the Philippines attack. The extensive postwar congressional joint Other than native means of communicating, investigation (which ran to forty published military signals in the Philippines were long volumes) provided considerable detail of those of Spain, the colonizer of the islands. what Washington DC knew from “Magic” After the Spanish-American War (1898) and decrypts of Japanese diplomatic messages, uprising against American forces the poor communication between the (1898–1903), signaling developed along lines nation’s military leadership and the com- used in the American Army. manders on Oahu (the final warning that an Origins of the Philippine Signal Corps lie attack might be imminent was sent from within the Philippine Constabulary, formed Washington by commercial telegram— by the Americans in 1901. Under Filipino

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officers by the 1920s, the unit provided com- went major changes. All of its functions, munications with homemade radio sets dur- including the signal school, were transferred ing the intensified campaign in 1935 against to the Service Command. Later that year all bandit groups operating in Tayabas (now units were transferred to general headquar- Quezon) Province. When the Philippines ters. The Office of the Chief Signal Officer were granted commonwealth status by the maintained technical supervision and con- U.S. Congress in 1936, this communication trol of operational activities. success led to the creation of the Signal A Signal Service Group was activated on Corps in the newly formed Armed Forces of 27 September 1954, whose units included the Philippines. The first Commonwealth the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Signal law made this corps one of the first technical Service Battalion, Signal School, and Signal service units of the srmy to provide com- Intelligence Service. The Signal Group was munications for the country’s ten military redesignated in 1965 as Communications- districts. Electronics Group. After the Japanese invasion of December By the early 1980s, the largest single user 1941, the Signal Corps played a vital role of Philippine telecommunications was the providing communications for joint Philip- U.S. military, which then had massive instal- pine and U.S. Army units defending Bataan lations at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval and Corregidor. After the May 1942 surren- Base. The Philippines also provided strategic der, a Signal Corps officer helped organize regional communication functions for the the first guerrilla unit in the Visayas. This United States, hosting the U.S. San Miguel was also the first resistance unit to establish Communications Center, the Southeast radio contact with the American forces. Vital Asian headquarters of the Central Intelli- information was passed to the Americans gence Agency, and the China transmitters regarding Japanese strength and disposition. of the Voice of America. This aided the reconquest of the country by In the early twenty-first century, American American forces in early 1945. The Philip- Special Forces trainers worked with ele- pines achieved independence the next year. ments of the Philippine army to bring them The new nation focused its army com - up to date after nearly three decades of anti- munications on a signal operations company, insurgency warfare. The biggest expense is a signal light construction battalion, and a buying modern communications systems to base depot company. An extensive commu- replace some of the Philippine military’s Viet- nications network linking army headquar- nam War–era equipment. New radios will ters with subordinate units was gradually help Philippine forces communicate within a established. At the same time the Military combat area and back to headquarters. Police Command Signal Corps installed and Cliff Lord and Christopher H. Sterling operated a broadcasting station, KAIMP See also Spanish-American War (1898) (“Voice of Peace and Order”), to support the corps’ psychological warfare activities. Mil- Sources Library of Congress. 1991. “Philippines Military itary forces played a strong political role in Profile.” Washington, DC: Library of the nation. Congress. With reorganization of the armed forces Sussman, Gerald. 1983. “Philippine Information on 15 April 1950, the Signal Corps under- System Geared Toward Multinationals and

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Security.” [Online article; retrieved December the coded alphabet. Phonetic alphabets were 2006.] http://multinational used daily as one soldier in a trench might monitor.org/hyper/issues/1983/06/ communicate on the phone to another at for- sussman.html. ward headquarters. Over the years, several such alphabets developed, as summarized in the table below. The first column shows that Phonetic Alphabet used by the British Royal Navy during World War I; the second shows the U.S. For radio and telephone communication, Army phonetic call signs used during the making messages absolutely clear some- same period; and the third column shows times involves spelling out key words, the joint U.S. Army–U.S. Navy phonetic almost all numbers, or even whole messages. alphabet in use during World War II. This has to be done in such a fashion that no Of course by then others were using radio letter is in doubt—a requirement that led to and telephone communication profession- the need for a standardized phonetic alpha- ally, including several important interna- bet. Attempts to develop such a standard tional bodies. Among these were the began in the late nineteenth century. While International Civil Aviation Organization military forces became important creators (ICAO), the International Telecommunica- and users of such systems by World War I, tion Union (ITU), the International Maritime civilian needs (as in air transport) played a Organization (IMO), the U.S. Federal Avia- role as well. tion Administration, and the American Even during World War I, it became National Standards Institute, each of which increasingly clear that a growing proportion had evolved differing “standard” alphabets of military and naval communication would of their own. The fourth alphabet shown in rely on the voice of operators using tele- the table is that first adopted by ITU in 1927, phones, sound-powered phones, wireless, as revised slightly in 1932, and then adopted and radio telephones. Yet given the many by the International Commission for Air languages and dialects in the world, opera- Navigation (predecessor of ICAO) and used tors often had trouble communicating with by airlines before World War II. This alpha- others using different languages. Unless one bet was continued by IMO until 1965. Note is very familiar with the speech patterns of the logical use of common travel names and other languages, one may be forced to spell the considerable variation in number names. out the more challenging technical terms let- The final column shows the present-day ter by letter or go over numbers carefully one North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by one. phonetic alphabet. The first NATO alphabet Perhaps the first standardized phonetic was a subset of the much older International alphabet evolved informally in the British Code of Signals, which originally included Royal Corps of Signals to teach Morse code. visual signals by flags or flashing light; Each Morse symbol had a vocal equivalent, sound signals by whistle, siren, foghorn, or such as a short and long syllable to equal a bell; and one-, two-, or three-letter codes for dot followed by a dash. This alphabet, how- many phrases. Issued soon after World War ever, was merely used in training to master II, the Allied Tactical Publication (ATP-1)

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Phonetic Alphabets (1) WWI (2) WWI (3) WWII U.S. (4) ITU/IMO (5) NATO Royal Navy U.S. Army Army/Navy 1927–1965 1956 A apples able able amsterdam alfa B butter boy baker baltimore bravo C charlie cast charlie casablanca charlie D duff dock dog denmark delta E edward easy easy edison echo F freddy fox fox florida foxtrot G george george george gallipoli golf H harry have how havana hotel I ink item item italia india J johnnie jig jig jerusalem juliett K king king king kilogramme kilo L london love love liverpool lima M monkey mike mike madagascar mike N nuts nan nan new york november O orange opal oboe oslo oscar P pudding pup peter paris papa Q queenie quack queen quebec quebec R robert rush roger roma romeo S sugar sail sugar santiago sierra T tommy tare tare tripoli tango U uncle unit uncle upsala uniform V vinegar vice victor valencia victor W william watch william washington whiskey X xerxes x-ray x-ray xanthippe x-ray Y yellow yoke yoke yokahama yankee Z zebra zed zebra zurich zulu

1 unaone one 2 bissotwo two 3 terrathree three 4 kartefour four 5 pantafive five 6 soxisix six 7 setteseven seven 8 oktoeight eight 9 novanine niner 0 nadazero zero included this alphabet in its second volume, Alphabet became widespread as these sig- Allied Maritime Signal and Maneuvering Book, nals and this alphabet became a true global used by all allied NATO navies. Technically, standard. In the original version of late 1951, however, ATP-1 is classified and not publicly the alphabet included the words coca, extra, available. Yet the name NATO Phonetic metro, nectar, and union. By early 1956 they

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were replaced as this version was imple- posed images of British army camp life. The mented by ICAO and became the estab- British set up the first military photography lished phonetic alphabet for ITU’s 1959 Radio school a year later. During the American Regulations. Civil War (1861–1865), photographers such David L. Woods as Matthew Brady were able to show the See also Airplanes; Code, Codebook; Interna- aftermath of battles. Bulky and technologi- tional Code of Signals (ICS); Morse Code; cally crude glass plate equipment, however, Radio; Telephone; Walkie-Talkie generally prevented war photographers from producing images of ongoing battles. Sources In 1898, American military photographers Albright, Robert William. 1958. “The Interna- were the first to use celluloid film rather tional Phonetic Alphabet: Its Backgrounds and Development.” International Journal of than glass plates. During the Philippine American Linguistics 24 (1, Part 3): 78 pp. Insurrection in 1899, J. D. Salisbury became International Phonetic Association. 1999. the first U.S. Army photographer to be cap- Handbook of the International Phonetic Associa- tured by the enemy. In 1900, Frances Johnson tion: A Guide to the Use of the International became the first female photographer Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge assigned to a combat zone. When World War University Press. Logan, Robert K. 1986. The Alphabet Effect: The I broke out in Europe in 1914, photographers Impact of the Phonetic Alphabet on the Develop- followed troops into battle. Cameras were ment of Western Civilization. New York: smaller and film was faster as shutter speeds William Morrow. increased, allowing photographers to be Rose, L. J. 1956. “Aviation’s ABC: The Develop- more mobile and closer to combat action. ment of the ICAO Spelling Alphabet.” ICAO Bulletin 11 (2): 12–14. During World War II, cameras were totally Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical manual in operation, yet combat photogra- Communication Techniques, plate XI-6. phers worked in the midst of savage destruc- Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by tion to capture vital events on film. World Arno Press, 1974). War II combat camera crews were trained by the Army’s First Motion Picture Unit near Hollywood, California. Each crew was com- Photography posed of seven officers and twenty to thirty enlisted men. Combat photography brings to mind famous American military photography is pro- scenes of Pearl Harbor, the Normandy inva- vided today by a small group of profession- sion, raising the flag on Iwo Jima, the Tet als. These combat camera (COMCAM) Offensive in Vietnam, or scenes from the soldiers, sailors, air personnel, and marines Gulf War, Somalia, Panama, or the recent provide commanders and decision makers military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. with essential battlefield information in sup- This entry concerns photography taken by port of strategic, operational, and tactical and for military forces, as opposed to the mission objectives. COMCAM forces come better known journalistic variety. from the Army’s 55th Signal Company, the Military combat photography dates back Air Force 1st Combat Camera Squadron, to the Crimean War in 1855 when English- three Marine Corps COMCAM units, and man Roger Fenton photographed carefully the Navy’s Fleet Combat Camera Groups.

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A U.S. Army combat photographer is shown with his digital video camera before conducting a sensitive site exploration outside Kabul, Afghanistan, in July 2002. Combat photography has long provided important informa- tion in the planning and evaluation of military operations. (Department of Defense)

There are also COMCAM units in the reserve vice, and its mission is to provide comman- forces and National Guard. These units play ders with imagery support of operational an important role in every contingency oper- and planning requirements during world- ation, training exercise, and humanitarian wide crises, contingencies, exercises, and relief mission. COMCAM units are capable wartime operations. COMCAM imagery of worldwide deployment on short notice may also be used as a secondary intelligence and are skilled in digital and conventional resource. Military COMCAM units have still photography, film processing, digital served in virtually every American military image transmission, digital and conventional action in recent years. video photography, and video editing. The World War II truism is as valid today as The Department of Defense established it was then: “The brave ones were shooting the the Joint Combat Camera Center (JCCC) at enemy. The crazy ones were shooting film.” the Pentagon. It serves as the hub for COM- Danny Johnson CAM imagery of significant defense opera- See also Television tions and exercises worldwide, and is the central reception center for all COMCAM Sources still and video imagery. The JCCC is a divi- Department of Defense. 1996. Joint Combat sion of the American Forces Information Ser- Camera (COMCAM) Program. Directive

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Number 5040.4 (30 September). Washington, 1962 the Phu Lam station was in operation DC: Department of Defense. twenty-four hours daily, operating high- “Images of War: Combat Photography, frequency radio circuits to Thailand, Okinawa, 1918–1971.” 2000. Eyewitness to History. [Online information; retrieved December and the Philippines. Less than a year later, 2005.] Phu Lam was included on forty-four teletype http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ and nine voice communications circuits. cbpintro.htm. In late 1963 U.S. Army engineers installed Military Intelligence Division, War Department. the Saigon Overseas (telephone) Switchboard 1945. Choosing the Right Photograph: Part IV: and a paper tape message relay system at Military and Technical Photography. Washing- ton, DC: Government Printing Office. Phu Lam, marking the shift of virtually all Moyes, Norman B. 1996. Battle Eye: A History of U.S. military communications conduits from American Combat Photography. New York: Saigon to Phu Lam. In early 1964 Phu Lam Metro Books. handled some 185,000 messages per month. After the Gulf of Tonkin crisis in 1964, an experimental satellite messaging terminal Phu Lam, Vietnam (1961–1972) was installed, and Phu Lam was placed under the Pacific headquarters of the Army The American military established its first Strategic Communications Command. communications system in Vietnam in 1951, In 1965 American ground forces were relying on a single high-frequency radio link deployed to South Vietnam. Phu Lam’s facil- from Saigon to Clark Air Force Base in the ities were expanded with the introduction of Philippines. In 1961 President John F. Ken- the Integrated Wideband Communications nedy ordered an increase in the number of System, which provided reliable radio links American military personnel in the Republic between American military units and South of Vietnam (South Vietnam), necessitating Vietnam’s provincial capitals. An IBM punch improvements in these communications capa- card–based data relay replaced the tape mes- bilities. Phu Lam, a suburb of Saigon, was sage system, allowing greater speed and selected as the site for America’s new military accuracy in message production and trans- communications hub in South Vietnam. The mission. In March 1968 the new Automatic U.S. Army managed Phu Lam, placing high- Digital Network (AUTODIN) switching cen- frequency radio transmitters there in 1961. ter became operational, and use of the IBM Meanwhile the National Security Agency card system declined. AUTODIN permitted (NSA) was laying an undersea cable from accelerated ordering of equipment and sup- the Philippines to Nha Trang, on the central plies, as well as intelligence reporting from coast of South Vietnam, as part of NSA’s new the field. By late 1969 AUTODIN processed secure communications system in the West- almost all U.S. military message traffic in ern Pacific and Southeast Asia, code-named and out of Saigon. WETWASH. Completed in 1962, the WET- The phased withdrawal of U.S. forces WASH system allowed Phu Lam to send from Vietnam in the early 1970s reduced messages to Nha Trang by tropospheric scat- demand for Phu Lam’s services. Beginning ter radio. From there the messages were in 1972, when the post was reorganized as a transmitted by cable to the Philippines, then signal battalion, some of its equipment was on to Hawaii and Washington DC. By mid- turned over to the South Vietnamese army

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under President Richard Nixon’s “Viet- tion. Genghis Khan (1162–1227) established namization” program. However, most of a pigeon relay system across Asia and much Phu Lam’s sophisticated communications of Europe. Even earlier, Syrians and technology was removed and transferred to Mesopotamians had active pigeon pro- American forces stationed in South Korea. grams. Raising and racing pigeons became a Phu Lam’s buildings were transferred to hobby for many, and pigeon fanciers were South Vietnam in November 1972, and were often helpful to national interests during eventually seized by Communist Viet- periods of war. Pigeons were used to trans- namese forces in April 1975. mit vital news in the nineteenth century by Laura M. Calkins the new Reuters service just as the Rothchild See also Automatic Digital Network financial empire was informed by frequent (AUTODIN); Communication Satellites; signals via pigeon. Perhaps the first wide National Security Agency (NSA); attention came to pigeons as messengers Teleprinter/Teletype; Tropospheric Scatter; during the German siege of Paris in Undersea Cables; Vietnam War (1959–1975) 1870–1871. Some reports indicate homing Sources pigeons were carried out on balloons to per- Rienzi, Thomas M. 1972. Communications- mit them to carry messages back into the Electronics 1962–1970. Washington, DC: city. Messages were reduced in size by pho- Department of the Army. tography—40,000 messages were reportedly Rokus, Josef W. n.d. “The Phu Lam, Vietnam received on just one day (3 February 1871). U.S. Army Communications Base.” [Online information; retrieved December 2004.] During the six-month siege, only 57 of 302 http://phulam.com/history.htm. birds actually reached Paris, but these were untrained birds working in unfavorable win- ter weather. Pigeons Nations’ use of pigeons soon flourished. Germany established pigeon lofts or bases in The use of homing, or carrier, pigeons in mil- sixteen major cities, France built seventeen itary signaling over thousands of years sug- military lofts along the German frontier with gests several contradictions. Despite the lack a central loft in Paris, and both Italy and of attention to their role, pigeons are among Portugal built more than a dozen. Austria, the oldest means of military communica- Russia, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, and tions. Though Britain and the United States Sweden all had active pigeon programs. Bel- led in the introduction of most modes of mil- gian pigeon expert Lieutenant Felix Gigot itary signaling, both lagged in pigeon use in underscored the importance of using experi- signaling (though they captured more cover- enced birds for longer missions. For dis- age than the true pioneering pigeon-using tances up to 60 to 90 miles, for example, he nations). And while few signal systems are recommended dispatch of two pigeons at equally suitable for short-, mid-, or long- least six months old. For up to 120 miles, he range communication, pigeons could handle called for three birds each at least a year old; all of these and, until the advent of electrical and so on—up to sending six three year-old communications, were for centuries the only birds for distances up to 240 miles. By late in message system that could do so. the nineteenth century, U.S. Army General Pigeons have from ancient times formed a Nelson Miles had attempted to work with key portion of much long-range communica-

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one pigeon message had helped save 1,800 Italians and led to the capture of 3,500 Aus- trians. R. F. H. Nalder wrote that by the end of the war, the British army used 20,000 birds and some 350 handlers as part of its Signal Service, although he attributed this use largely to the difficult conditions on the Western Front and lack of more satisfactory alternatives. During both world wars, pigeons were dropped into occupied terri- tory in the hope that partisans would find them, write descriptions of events and forti- fications, and then release the pigeons to come home with this needed data. The U.S. Army pigeon program almost disappeared just prior to World War I, but was revived to enjoy considerable success, particularly in North Africa. Most naval pigeons carried messages from ship to shore, Pigeons were used for centuries to send military although some British pigeons flew mes- signals, often over enemy lines. Here one of the birds sages to nearby warships. A highly trained is shown fitted with a film-message capsule during pigeon could fly both ways—if food and World War II. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command family were maintained ashore. History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) David L. Woods See also Ancient Signals; Cher Ami and the pigeons in the Dakota Territory as early as “Lost Battalion”; Medieval Military Signaling 1880, though local hawks ate most of his (500–1500 CE) pigeons. By 1890, Naval Academy professor Sources Francis Marion and Lieutenant E. B. Eberle Allatt, H. T. W. 1886. “The Use of Pigeons as had begun experiments and were advocat- Messengers in War and the Military Pigeon ing pigeons for use in the U.S. Navy, and by Systems of Europe.” Journal of the Royal 1897 the Royal Navy began pigeon experi- United Service Institution 30 (188): 107–148. ments under Commander Lionel Tufnell. Harfield, Alan. 1989. “The Pigeon Service.” In By World War I, both the British army and Pigeon to Packhorse: The Illustrated Story of Animals in Army Communications. Chippen- Royal Navy operated major pigeon pro- ham, UK: Picton. grams, both begun by former pigeon fancier Marion, H. 1892. “Pigeons for Sea Service.” U.S. A. H. Osman, who later accepted an army Naval Institute Proceedings 18 (4): 589–596. commission and brought his son into the Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: program. Osman later advised the U.S. A History of its Antecedents and Development. London: Royal Signals Institution. Army pigeon program. Pigeons turned out Osman, A. H. 1928. Pigeons in the Great War: A to be conveniently immune to tear gas, then Complete History of the Carrier-Pigeon Service so common in trench warfare. An Italian pro- During the Great War, 1914–1918. London: gram used 50,000 pigeons, reporting that The “Racing Pigeon” Publishing Co.

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Osman, W. H. 1950. Pigeons in World War II. commercial version of the Enigma coding Norwich, UK: The “Racing Pigeon” Publish- machine and several dozen intercepted mil- ing Co. itary messages, which proved useful in help- Wilson, James. 1899. “The Naval Pigeon Post.” The Navy & Army Illustrated, May 27, ing to break the more complex military 222–223. version of the machine. He also received a German description of the machine and tables, with its rotor and plugboard settings, Polish Code Breaking in the fall of 1932, discovering only years later that these had come from Captain Gus- Code breakers in Poland were the first to tave Bertrand of French radio intelligence. It solve the German military Enigma machine took Rejewski ten weeks to solve the and the messages sent on it in 1932 in a pro- Enigma’s complex internal wiring, and thus ject known as GALE. Their pioneering work be able to develop methods for solving its contributed enormously to the Allied success traffic. While his mathematical work and an in reading secret German military communi- inspired guess had played a crucial role, he cations during World War II. acknowledged that the French material had saved at least two years. Intercepted 1932 Project GALE German Christmas messages enabled him Project GALE (Wicher) was conducted from to verify his mathematical reconstruction 1933 to1939 by the Cipher Bureau (CB) of the of Enigma. Beginning in January 1933, the Second Department of the Polish General Polish CB was able to regularly decipher Staff. The first attempts to break the military Enigma messages as it tracked the steady Enigma machine were made by Lieutenant German improvements of the device. Antoni Palluth and Major Maksymilian CB soon produced copies of Enigma with Ci??ki, of CB, starting in 1928. They estab- the aid of the AVA radio factory in Warsaw. lished that the first six characters of each By January 1938, the cryptologists were able Enigma message were important. To solve to decipher about 75 percent of intercepted the problem of a machine cipher, Major Fran- signals. Information gained from GALE was ciszek Pokorny, then head of Polish Radio so incredible that Polish intelligence officers Intelligence, organized a cryptological course in Germany were ordered to check it out on for mathematics students at Pozna? Univer- several occasions. CB was able to monitor sity from 1928 to 1929. Its purpose was to the German military and naval exercises as train those who understood higher mathe- well as German units entering Austria and matics to become cryptanalysts. Two partici- occupying Czechoslovakia in 1938, and Ger- pants, Jerzy Ró?ycki and Henryk Zygalski, man cruisers operating near Spain. To keep were chosen to work in the CB German Sec- GALE secret, for seven years the Polish intel- tion. In 1930 Marian Rejewski joined the team ligence authorities did not tell their own ana- part time (he shifted to full time in fall 1932), lysts (or their French collaborator, now Major and became the best of them all. Jointly this Gustave Bertrand) about the real source of team broke a book code of the German their data. Reichsmarine in September 1932. The team created a catalog of Enigma posi- Transferred to the Cipher Bureau in War- tions, observed and listed the mistakes of saw in mid-1932, Rejewski soon obtained a careless German operators, and developed

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mechanical aids such as the “cyclometer.” and British but they also gave the Allies two When the Germans improved their coding Polish replicas of the Enigma device. In mid- system in September 1938, the three cryptan- August (just two weeks prior to the German alysts invented the Polish “Bomba,” a invasion), Langer gave London an incom- mechanical device that synchronized the plete set of Zygalski’s sheets. The Polish rotors of six Enigmas, to speed discovery of GALE operation ended with its last deci- daily coding keys. As an additional aid, pherment of Enigma on 25 August. Zygalski invented his “Zygalski sheets.” After the German and Soviet invasions of Additional Enigma rotors (IV and V) intro- Poland, the Polish code breakers escaped to duced by the Germans at the end of 1938 Romania on 16–17 September 1939. They were reconstructed mathematically by soon reached Paris with help from Rejewski, thanks to the carelessness of one Bertrand’s people. There was no Allied cryp- network (of the Sicheheitsdienst, or SD), whose tographic success until January 1940 when messages were fully read until the end of Zygalski’s perforated sheets were supplied June 1939. German army and air force mes- from Bletchley Park to the French army radio sages from February 1939 to the end of the intelligence center, and with them, the Poles year were only partially broken (about 10 were again able to decipher German codes. percent of the traffic during that time) From 17 January 1940, they broke nearly a because of the new rotors and additional fifth of daily German codes, and during the plugs. CB lacked resources to build more spring German invasions of Norway and Bombas and to cut additional sets of sheets: France they deciphered 1,151 and 5,084 mes- To continue daily reading as quickly as before sages, respectively. would have required fifty-four more Bombas After the June 1940 collapse of France, the (each with six sets of rotors) and fifty-eight Polish team was transferred to North Africa additional sets of Zygalski’s sheets (each set and then back to Vichy France. There the team comprising twenty-six items). worked at the secret French cryptological cen- Seeking another solution, Colonel Gwido ter set up near Nimes in Provence until the Langer, chief of Polish radio intelligence, and German occupation of Vichy France in his deputy, Major Maksymilian Ci??ki, at - November 1942. Rejewski and Zygalski tended the first Allied conference of cryptan- escaped to Spain and transferred through alysts in Paris on 10 January 1939. At that time Portugal to London. As suspect aliens, how- the French had minimal knowledge of ever, they were not allowed into Bletchley Enigma, and the British had been balked by Park and could not even regain the Polish one of the machine’s interior connections. The copy of the Enigma given to the British in Poles were forbidden to disclose their success. mid-1939. Polish-British cooperation unfor- Eventually, General Wac?aw Stachiewicz, tunately ceased after the June 1944 D-Day chief of the Polish General Staff, gave per- landings, as the Polish General Staff trans- mission to share the Polish Enigma success ferred Rejewski to the Russian section, the in mid-1939. On 25–26 July, a second confer- results of which remain unknown. The Polish ence took place, at the CB center in Pyry, code-breaking role was largely forgotten until south of Warsaw. Polish cryptanalysts not publication of Bertrand’s memoirs in 1973. only shared their knowledge of Enigma and The British eventually honored the Poles with methods of breaking its keys with the French a special monument at Bletchley Park in 2002.

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Key Polish Personnel Marian A. Rejewski (1905–1980) studied Gwido Langer (1894–1948) was an Austrian math and physics at Pozna? University, officer who fought on the Eastern Front dur- attending a course in cryptology run by the ing World War I, escaped from Russia in 1920, army’s general staff in 1928. From 1930 to and graduated from the Military Staff College 1932 he worked at the cryptological outpost in Warsaw in 1925. In the 1930s, he headed of the Cipher Bureau in Pozna?, breaking and reorganized CB and intercept stations. hand ciphers of the German army (Reich- Cooperating closely with Major Bertrand, he swehr). In late 1932, Rejewski made the key organized and supervised Project GALE, breakthroughs in understanding how the though he was not a code breaker himself. Enigma machine worked—and thus how it Together with Major Maksymilian Ci??ki, could be broken. By mid-1944 he was work- Colonel Langer created the Polish cipher ing on Soviet codes. He spent 1945–1946 in machine Lacida, which because of its limita- Scotland taking part in the Military Admin- tions did not see use during the September istration’s Officers Training Course (in fact 1939 invasion. However, copies that survived an intelligence school of the Polish Army in evacuation to France helped him maintain Exile), returning to his family in Bydgoszcz secret communication with his superiors in in November 1946. He never worked with London. He supervised the Polish sections codes again, being employed in various local of CB in France from 1939 to 1942. In March industry cooperatives until retiring in 1967. 1943 Langer was arrested by the Germans Jerzy Ró?ycki (1909–1942) entered CB as a and sent to Schloss Eisenberg, a prisoner of student after taking a cryptological course in war camp in Czechoslovakia. Despite interro- Pozna?. During Project GALE, he invented gation, he managed to withhold the breaking the “clock” method for solving the order in of Enigma. He was liberated by the American which the rotors were inserted into Enigma Army, but soon died in London. (e.g., III, I, IV, etc.). He participated in the Maksymilian Ci??ki (1898–1951) was a invention of the Polish Bomba. By mid-1940, radio operator with the German army in he was sent to the Algiers outpost to assist World War I (what is now western Poland Ci??ki. He was drowned in the loss of the SS was then part of Germany), participated in Lamoricière, off the Balearic Islands in Janu- the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, and by ary 1942. 1923 was a signals intelligence officer in CB. Henryk Zygalski (1908–1978) was another Deputy to Langer, he supervised the work of brilliant student at the Pozna? cryptological Polish cryptologists in Project GALE, the course, entered CB and closely cooperated production of Enigma analog devices, and with Rejewski on breaking Enigma in the Lacida coding machines. In 1941–1942, he 1930s. He helped the latter to create the was responsible for the radio work of a Pol- Bomba device and also invented the special ish outpost in Algiers. Arrested by the Ger- Zygalski sheets to break Enigma anew in mans, he spent the rest of World War II with autumn 1938. The method was used at his superior in Schloss Eisenberg. Interro- Bletchley Park from mid-January on (except gated by the Germans in spring 1944, he for a net used in the invasion of Norway). convinced them that Enigma had defeated Zygalski reached London in August 1943 Polish code breakers after the 1938 changes. and, together with Rejewski, achieved mas- Liberated, he died in England. tery in solving German police ciphers. In

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doing so he may have helped the British in ments, particularly the development of a sig- breaking Enigma daily codes even though he nal code that was adopted by the Royal was not allowed into Bletchley Park. After Navy in 1803. World War II he remained in England and Popham entered the Royal Navy in 1778 at became a lecturer in mathematics at the Bat- age sixteen and served during the American tersea Institute of Technology. Revolution. In 1783 he was promoted to lieu- Zdzislaw J. Kapera tenant and was for a time engaged in survey See also Bletchley Park; Britain, Battle of (1940); service on the coast of Africa. Between 1787 Code Breaking; Enigma; Signals Intelligence and 1793 he was engaged in a series of com- (SIGINT); Ultra mercial adventures in the Eastern Sea, sailing first for the Imperial Ostem Company and Sources Bloch, Gilbert. 1990. “The French Contribution then in a vessel he purchased and in part to the Breaking of ‘Enigma.’” The Enigma loaded himself. He undertook several sur- Bulletin [The Enigma Press] 1 (December): veys for the East India Company, but in the 3–13. 1790s became involved in litigation with the Ciechanowski, J. S., et al., eds. 2005. Marian firm and soon resumed his naval career. He Rejewski 1905–1980. Living with the Enigma achieved higher ranks and was engaged for Secret. Bydgoszcz, Poland: City Council. Kahn, David. 1991. Seizing the Enigma: The Race years in naval cooperation with the troops of to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943. Britain and its allies in various military expe- Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ditions. He ran into further difficulties as Kapera, Zdzis?aw J. 2002. Before ULTRA There several senior admiralty officials did not like Was GALE. Kraków: The Enigma Press. him. Popham was not a man to be quashed Kapera, Zdzislaw J. 2005. Marian Rejewski Pogromca Enigmy [Marian Rejewski. The Man without an effort. He brought his case before Who Defeated ENIGMA]. Kraków: The Parliament and was able to prove that there Enigma Press. had been, if not deliberate dishonesty, at Kozaczuk, Wladyslaw. 1984. Enigma: How the least the very grossest carelessness on the German Cipher Machine Was Broken and How It part of his assailants. Was Read by the Allies During World War II. Popham was one of the most scientific Washington, DC: University Publications of America. seamen of his time. While commanding the Medrala, J. 2005. Les reseaux de renseignements Royal Navy ship HMS Romney off Copen- franco-polonais 1940–1944. Paris: Harmattan. hagen, he drew on his ideas and those of Stirling, T., W. Maresch, and J. Tebinka, eds. others to develop a new numeric code using 2005. Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland traditional signal flags. First published pri- and Great Britain During World War II, Vol. 1: The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical vately in 1800, an expanded version was Committee. Portland, OR: Vallentine adopted by the Admiralty in 1803 and used Mitchell. for many years. Ships would initially fly a single “telegraph” flag to indicate they were using Popham’s system. Popham’s signal Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820) flag system allowed more detailed commu- nication—initially a thousand and soon Sir Home Riggs Popham was a British admi- more than two thousand words as well as ral who saw service during the French Rev- some sentences. Admiral Lord Horatio Nel- olutionary and Napoleonic wars. He is son liked the system and used it at the Bat- remembered for his scientific accomplish- tle of Trafalgar to send one of naval history’s

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most famous signals, “England expects that tributes hugely to military morale, as every man will do his duty.” Seeking to attested in countless cases. Organized sys- expand his system he added flags indicating tems to deliver mail to military forces date letters and soon had some 11,000 three-flag back to early Egyptian armies around 2000 signals (more if four flags were used), a sys- BCE. In modern times, virtually all such sys- tem that was issued to the Royal Navy in tems interface with government/civilian 1813. A final version was published in 1816 mail services. Only a few more recent exam- as an official “Vocabulary Signal Book.” With ples are noted here. this, naval officers could carry on simple A need for a postal service for British two-way conversations. Later versions troops posted abroad was evident in the late appeared after Popham’s death, and similar eighteenth century. Only in 1808, during the signal systems were adopted by the Mer- Peninsular War in Spain, however, was the chant Navy as well. first army post office placed into operation. Despite numerous later conflicts, Popham In 1840 another army post office was estab- was appointed to other commands. In lished during operations in Hong Kong. The 1812–1813 he worked with Spanish guerril- Indian Army Postal Service dates to British las to successfully harry occupying French colonial field post office systems established forces and facilities while the Duke of in 1856. Wellington was advancing through Spain. During the American Civil War He was promoted to rear admiral in 1814, (1861–1865), mail service to soldiers and and made a knight in 1815. He died at Chel- sailors was erratic, especially if forces were tenham on 20 September 1820. Popham’s on the move. The post office acknowledged son and namesake also entered the navy and that few soldiers carried stamps and permit- helped perfect British semaphore systems. ted them to send letters without them. A sol- Christopher H. Sterling dier’s envelope had to bear his name, rank, See also Flags; Signal Book; Trafalgar, Battle of and unit. Such mail was marked “postage (21 October 1805) due,” and the amount indicated was col- lected from the addressee. The post office at Sources the headquarters of the Union Army saw Mallinson, Howard. 2005. “Popham’s Naval thousands of letters pass every week. Each Vocabulary Code.” In Send It by Semaphore: regiment had a post boy, who carried the The Old Telegraphs During the Wars with France, 91–94. Ramsbury, UK: Crowood letters of his command to brigade headquar- Press. ters. There the mails of the different regi- Popham, Hugh. 1991. A Damned Cunning Fellow: ments were placed in one pouch and sent up The Eventful Life of Rear-Admiral Sir Home to division headquarters, and thence to corps Popham. Tywardreath, UK: Old Ferry Press. headquarters, where mail agents received and delivered them at the principal depot of the army. The work required a Postal Services large number of men, nearly all private sol- diers detailed for such duty. Confederate Most nations with fighting forces have and Union prisoners were allowed to developed some means of distributing mail exchange mail through flag-of-truce ships to those forces. This is partially a matter of and other designated points. Little mail was communication, of course, but also con- censored.

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In Britain on 22 July 1882 the Post Office personnel landed by parachute and glider on Corps was formed using volunteers for ser- D-Day in 1944, and field post offices were vice in Britain’s colonial campaigns in Egypt established on the beachhead within hours and the Sudan. The Post Office Corps was of their arrival. Likewise, Australian and followed by a second army postal corps New Zealand forces serving in World War II called the Royal Engineers Telegraph Re - were supported by military postal units from serve. In 1889 both reserve corps were reor- those nations. ganized to create an efficient postal and RE (PS) served with British troops in the telegraph service during the 1899–1902 Korean War. The Home Postal Depot took South African (Boer) War. In 1908 a further over responsibility for Royal Naval Mails reorganization amalgamated the two reserve and HM Ships mail from the Civil Post companies into the Royal Engineers (Postal Office in 1962. Thus the RE Postal and Section), or RE (PS). Courier Communication (PCC) became a Major fighting powers in World War I British forces tri-service organization (having developed extensive military mail services previously accepted responsibility for Royal (Feldpost in German-speaking countries; Air Force mails), as well as an international Bureau Postal Interarmees in France). The military service with British units in the British RE (PS) served in France, Belgium, North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A fur- the Dardanelles, Egypt, Palestine, East Africa, ther reorganization took place in 1979 to Greece, Italy, and North Russia. In addition to form the Royal Engineers Post and Courier conventional means, mail was transported Services, RE (PCS). by mule, sleigh, trawler, minesweeper—in Each American military service managed fact, any form of transport available at the its own mail program until 1980, when the time. At the outbreak of World War I, army Department of Defense (DoD) designated postal personnel totaled 300 men, and they the secretary of the army as the single mili- were presumed sufficient to service mails for tary mail manager. The Military Postal Ser- the British Expeditionary Force. By 1918 this vice Agency (MPSA) was created to be the task required some 2,500 people, nearly half DoD point of contact with the U.S. Postal of them women. Experiments were carried Service. MPSA is headquartered in Alexan- out that year using modified aircraft for dria, Virginia, manages the Military Postal transporting mail by air, and the first regular Service, and handles both official and per- airmail service (from Folkestone to Cologne) sonal military mail. Security concerns since was set up in March 1919 to provide British 2001 have slowed traditional (“snail”) mail troops in Germany with a fast mail service. transport—for example, it was taking two Levels of mail censorship varied by coun- weeks to get a letter to soldiers in Iraq in try. Allied enlisted men’s mail was closely 2003. MPSA utilizes civilian and military air censored (officers were to censor their own and sea transport to serve approximately mail) to prevent communication of impor- 2,000 military post offices in eighty-five tant military information. Army or air force countries as of early 2006. post office or fleet post office mail services The Military Postal History Society controlled U.S. service mails during and (founded in 1937) is but one example of a after World War II. The British RE Postal Sec- number of collector groups around the world tion (PS) served on all fronts worldwide and interested in military mail over history. was detached with forward troops. RE (PS) Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Couriers; E-Mail Systems; V-Mail cation to achieve a desired tactical or strate- gic response. It involves organized and often Sources emotional campaigns that may employ AOL Hometown. “Centenary of the Forces graphic, print, film, or radio (including loud- Postal Service.” [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] http://members speakers) media. .aol.com/reubique/aps.htm. “Psychological warfare” first appeared as Boyden, Peter B., and Alan J. Guy. 1990. Tommy a term around 1920 and involves a broad Atkin’s Letters: The History of the British Army and continuing campaign of propaganda Postal Service from 1795. London: National intended to confuse an enemy, weaken their Army Museum. Postal and Courier Services (UK). Home page. resolve, and make them surrender. It is [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] employed in both traditional warfare and http://www.regiments.org/regiments/ terrorism and antiterrorism activities. “Psy- uk/corps/postal.htm#biblio. chological operations” (PSYOPS), first used PostalCensorship.com. “Censored and Military in 1945 and now the term of choice (as it Postal History.” [Online information; does not reference “warfare”), is the mili- retrieved March 2006.] http://www .postalcensorship.com/. tary use of propagandistic communication Samachar, Sainik. 2005. “Army Postal Service: content to discredit, demoralize, and intim- A Soldier’s Messenger.” [Online article; idate enemy forces. All three terms are often retrieved March 2006.] http://www (and confusingly) used interchangeably, and .bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/ can be offensive (the most common) or Army/Articles/Article45.html. Wells, Edward. 1987. Mailshot: A History of the defensive in nature. Forces Postal Service. London: Defence Postal Propaganda in support of military opera- & Courier Services, Royal Engineers. tions is rarely political in emphasis, but rather serves a variety of more specific aims. It can be used to encourage enemy surrender Propaganda and Psychological by emphasizing the futility of the enemy’s Warfare situation; build up enemy fear of the effects of your weapons; counter enemy propa- Propaganda is a type of military communica- ganda directed at your own forces; encour- tion designed to weaken an enemy before and age friendly partisan or guerrilla activities; during operations. Put another way, propa- control enemy and friendly citizens in com- ganda seeks military gains without, or more bat areas; and disseminate useful military usually in support of, military force. While information and proclamations. utilized well before nineteenth-century war- The impact of all such efforts was poorly fare (there are many references to propaganda understood for most of military history. Prac- efforts; both sides used it during the American titioners hoped or believed that their efforts Civil War), propaganda and psychological had a direct or “hypodermic needle” effect, warfare really came into their own during the such as using surrender leaflets to encourage two world wars. While many efforts were enemy soldiers to stop fighting. Only with made to propagandize civilians, this entry careful research in the mid-twentieth century focuses on military applications. was it learned, for example, that ridicule sel- “Military propaganda” (an old term based dom works, and that clearly defined messages on “propagating” ideas) is the process of designed for reception by specific audiences applying planned, manipulative communi- usually had greater impact.

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World War I leaflet campaigns began to have some effect, As a modern psychological weapon of war, as did millions of leaflets urging replacement propaganda was first systematically applied of the Kaiser and military government. by all major combatants in World War I. French (until 1916) and German efforts were World War II largely controlled by the military, while most All sides applied lessons from the first world British and American efforts were under war to the second. Of all the fighting powers, civilian control. German propaganda was clearly the best In sharp contrast to its World War II ex - synchronized with their military effort. Film perience, Germany was not as clearly orga- and radio (broadcasting was new to this nized as the British or Americans. The war) helped promote the mighty power of American military propaganda effort, pri- German arms, as did bright poster art and marily one of morale and surrender leaflets printed media. Edmund Taylor’s 1940 book, aimed at German soldiers, was headed by The Strategy of Terror, labeled the German the Propaganda Section of the Allied Expedi- approach as a strategy of terror. Later in the tionary Force General Headquarters. Leaflet war, much German military propaganda content often focused on how food would be was defensive in nature—seeking to hold supplied for the ill-fed German soldiers if up the morale of the German fighting man. they surrendered. Americans built their pro- Both sides again used black propaganda paganda approach and messages on exten- against enemy forces, only this time mes- sive British and French experience. sages were greatly enhanced by the use of Some military propaganda was “black” shortwave radio. The Germans set up a sta- in that it purported to originate on the tion in 1939–1940 that seemed to be coming enemy side of the line. This might take the from inside France, seeking to get French form, for example, of a German-language soldiers to save themselves while they could. newspaper that provided detailed reports Likewise a later Allied shortwave station of hunger and other trouble behind the lines. was made to appear as though it was really Other efforts sought to divide the frontline operated by renegade German soldiers, rant- fighter from his officers (or higher leadership ing about the inequities of the German sys- at home), showing the former suffering so tem in the tone of a griping frontline fighter. that the latter could safely live the good life. The American military effort, directed by Allied efforts to divide German forces the War Department’s Propaganda Branch, from their Austro-Hungarian allies were provided research and coordination with often successful as they built on existing dif- civilian efforts, but operational efforts were ferences and cultural thinking. Allied propa- left to theater commanders under the ganda (some dropped from airplanes or assumption that psychological warfare was a unmanned balloons) was very effective in function of command. Indeed, psychological promoting defeatist thinking among (and operations on the tactical level were first used surrender from) multinational Austro- on a large scale in World War II. By late in the Hungarian forces facing the Italians in April war, psychological warfare units often oper- 1918. Likewise as the war turned against Ger- ated at the small-unit level. One effective many in the summer of 1918 on the Western American effort closely coordinated the use Front, heretofore pointless Allied surrender of artillery leaflet shells and radio broadcasts

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to surrounded German forces in the French (and later China as well). The Psychological port city of Lorient in 1944. Among many Warfare Section of the Far East Command other broadcasts, captured family letters to (headquartered in Tokyo) became the focus the defending German soldiers were read on of such efforts, including widespread use of the air. In China, picture leaflets urged local loudspeakers on the ground and from the people to assist downed Allied fliers. air. Media and methods were essentially The most successful Allied military efforts those of World War II, with extensive use of were carefully designed leaflets intended to printed material of all types (nearly always lower enemy soldier morale and/or induce printed in Japan) and the use of broadcast his desertion or surrender. They emphasized female voices to elicit male responses. the decent treatment a prisoner would Efforts aimed roughly equally to hit the receive as well as bad conditions back home, morale of North Korean fighters and beef up and that officers were getting better food that of the defenders of South Korea. Esti- and shelter than frontline soldiers. These mates suggest upward of 100,000 enemy sol- were particularly effective in Europe, less so diers may have surrendered due to these in the Pacific because of cultural differences. efforts, especially picture leaflets aimed at Many millions were dropped by aircraft those who could not read. The North, in turn, (belly fuel tanks or bomb bays were con- made often very effective use of prisoner-of- verted to leaflet distribution uses). All types war broadcasts back to frontline Korean and of artillery shells (especially mortars) were American troops. used for leaflets as were many small arms A dozen years later, expanding U.S. psy- such as rifle grenades or even leaflet bundles chological warfare operations in Vietnam tossed like grenades. were controlled by the 4th PSYOP Group, Given the distances covered by Japan’s con- based in Saigon from 1967 to the end of quests at their height (from the borders of American involvement in 1973. Unlike earlier India to the mid-Pacific in 1942), the Japanese wars, however, tactical military and larger military relied on extensive use of shortwave political concerns were very closely inter- radio. This included the use of “Tokyo Rose” twined, often confusing messages and effects. and others broadcasting to American troops Once again broadcasts, loudspeakers, and to weaken their morale. Allied counterefforts leaflets were the primary means of transmit- by late in the war included messages trans- ting messages against the Viet Cong and mitted by loudspeakers mounted on tanks North Vietnamese throughout the fighting that were timed to give enemy soldiers time areas. But both enemy forces were more com- to surrender before an attack. More complex plex targets (they were far more committed language problems made this a limited option to their fighting role than earlier opponents) in parts of the Pacific Theater. in what many considered a civil war. The dismal end of the war in Vietnam had Korea and Vietnam a debilitating impact on military psychologi- Coming almost on the heels of World War II, cal operations and their importance sharply the Korean War saw almost immediate use declined in the American military services for of propaganda leaflets (more than two bil- several years. But based on all of this expe- lion by the end of the war) and broadcasts by rience and considerable research effort, PSY- Allied forces against those of North Korea OPS are once again an integral part of

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This propaganda leaflet was dropped over North Korea by American military forces in November 1950, as part of a psychological warfare operation. It shows the United Nations flag and the text: “The U.N. is working for the establishment of a united, independent and democratic Korea. Only the Communists oppose this, and insist on continuing the war.” (Bettmann/Corbis)

American military efforts, as seen in post– Linebarger, Paul M. A. 1954. Psychological Cold War fighting in the Persian Gulf and Warfare. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce Iraq. (2nd ed. reprinted by Arno Press 1972). Margolin, Leo J. 1946. Paper Bullets: A Brief Study Christopher H. Sterling of Psychological Warfare in World War II. New York: Froben Press. See also Airplanes; Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq McLaurin, Ron D., ed. 1982. Military Propaganda: War (2003–Present); Jamming; Korean War Psychological Warfare and Operations. New (1950–1953); Radio; Vietnam War York: Praeger. (1959–1975); World War I; World War II McLaurin, Ronald, et al., eds. 1976. The Art and Science of Psychological Operations: Case Studies of Military Application. Pamphlet No. Sources 525–7 (2 vols.). Washington, DC: Department Daugherty, William, and Morris Janowitz, eds. of the Army. 1958. A Psychological Warfare Casebook. Pease, Stephen E. 1992. Psywar: Psychological Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press for the Army Warfare in Korea, 1950–1953. Harrisburg, PA: Operations Research Office. Stackpole Books. Lerner, Daniel. 1949. Sykewar: Psychological Roetter, Charles. 1974. The Art of Psychological Warfare Against Germany: D-Day to VE-Day. Warfare. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein & Day. New York: George W. Stewart (reprinted by Taylor, Edmund L. 1940. The Strategy of Terror. MIT Press, 1971). Boston: Houghton Mifflin

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Quartz Crystal for Radio Control duction, no techniques or equipment were developed for carrying out the required ori- Of all the components of a radio transmitter entation, cutting, and grinding of quartz in and receiver, the most important is that which mass. controls its operating frequency. Though dif- The Army Signal Corps took the better ferent methods of controlling radio frequen- part of two decades to make the switch to cies exist, by far the most dependable is the quartz crystal control for its own equipment. quartz crystal oscillator. Methods of using Not until the development of its highly quartz oscillators for radio frequency control mobile air and armored branches did the were developed in the early 1920s. Making Army pay any real attention to the need for use of the piezoelectric property of quartz dependable and mobile radio communica- (i.e., the relationship between physical vibra- tions. Though radios utilizing methods other tions and electrical conductance), a unit con- than crystal control were dependable while sisting of a small, accurately ground wafer of sitting still, they became almost impossible quartz is inserted into the tuning circuit of the to use while in motion. As a result of tests radio. The natural oscillating frequency of the carried out during field maneuvers through- quartz wafer then becomes the operating fre- out 1940, the Signal Corps committed to full- quency of the radio. scale utilization of quartz oscillators. The initial market for quartz oscillators in The wisdom of this decision was ques- the late 1920s and the 1930s was made up tioned when, after the December 1941 attack almost entirely of ham (amateur) radio by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, the military enthusiasts and two-way radio manufactur- found itself requiring millions of crystal ers (such as the Galvin Corporation, later oscillators for its communications equip- Motorola). This relatively limited market ment and lacking any real industrial capac- was served by a small number of manufac- ity to produce them (prior to the war, the turers producing their oscillators by hand, largest numbers of oscillators produced one at a time. With no real need for mass pro- annually was on the order of 100,000). A

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mass production industry would need to be program required tremendous cooperation built, that industry would need to be sup- between the Signal Corps, the Army Air plied with raw quartz, and manufacturing- Transport Service, the War Production Board related defects in the oscillators would need and its attendant agencies, and the U.S. State to be overcome. Department. Through the Office of the Chief Signal Offi- All of these concerted efforts resulted in cer, calls went out to current oscillator manu- the adequate supply of dependable commu- facturers, radio and electronics companies, nications technology for the U.S. armed and anyone else interested to join this new forces. Push-button tuning while on the enterprise. Along the way, physicists, radio move allowed units to maintain contact engineers, and geologists were recruited by while maneuvering. The extreme stability of the Signal Corps to serve as instructors and the crystal oscillators allowed for the opera- troubleshooters for the nascent industry. Gov- tion of great numbers of radios within lim- ernment funding through such agencies as ited ranges of the spectrum and the quick the Defense Supplies Corporation and the establishment of radio monitoring networks. Reconstruction Finance Corporation was These benefits gave the Allies a distinct edge secured for manufacturers to ramp up their over the Axis and contributed greatly to the manufacturing capacity. Through the efforts winning of the war. of private manufacturers as well as Signal Richard J. Thompson, Jr. Corps research laboratories, equipment for See also Army Signal Corps; Fort Monmouth, orienting, cutting, and grinding large num- New Jersey; Mobile Communications; Radio bers of blanks were developed. These efforts led to the creation of an industry that pro- Sources Bottom, Virgil. 1981. “A History of the Quartz duced more than five million oscillator units Crystal Industry in the USA.” Proceedings during 1942 and more than twenty million of the 35th Annual Frequency Control during 1943. Symposium, 3. In order to supply this new industry with Thompson, Richard J. 2005. “The Development needed raw materials, the War Production of the Quartz Crystal Oscillator Industry of World War II.” IEEE Transactions 52: 694. Board devoted many resources (both human Thompson, Richard J. 2006. Crystal Clear: the and financial) to securing the entire produc- Struggle for Reliable Communications Technol- tion of the Brazilian quartz mining industry ogy in World War II. New York: IEEE and transporting it to the United States. This Press/Wiley.

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Radio Many early wireless demonstrations in Britain, the United States, and Germany were For more than a century, radio in various well attended (and sometimes funded) by forms has been a central means of military military and naval personnel. Some attempts communication. Wireless (as the British long to use wireless during the Boer War (1899– termed it) or radio communications have 1902), however, were not successful. Wireless played an expanding part in fighting, diplo- first proved a valuable factor in the Japanese macy, and propaganda from the turn of the victory over a Russian fleet at the 1905 Battle twentieth century. Major military powers of Tsushima, and Marconi equipment was developed significant land and sea wireless used by both the Romanians and the Turks in capability before World War I, though radio’s the little-remembered Balkan War of 1912. use in aircraft was still experimental. Radio Both the British Royal Navy and the U.S. came fully into its own during World War II Navy experimented with and then adopted and was dramatically transformed in the wireless early in the twentieth century. decades to follow. Within the first decade, both services were installing improved wireless transmitters Origins and receivers on combat vessels and devel- Practical use of radio began with the work of oping extensive networks of shore stations. Guglielmo Marconi and others in the late Airborne radio was first demonstrated in 1890s in the form of wireless telegraphy or British and German airships. The first suc- code, sent with the use of spark-gap trans- cessful two-way wireless between an air- mitters. It slowly progressed after about 1920 plane and the ground came in 1910 in a test to radio telephony or voice signaling, made with a Curtiss aircraft. At this stage radio sets possible by vacuum tube continuous wave were heavy, bulky, and hard to tune—all transmitters. Depending on the need of the drawbacks to their aerial use. moment, in many cases the two operated Key innovators after Marconi included side by side. Americans Edwin Armstrong, Lee de Forest,

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and Reginald Fessenden, among many oth- man undersea telegraph cables were cut by ers. Though hotly competitive, in the years the British in the early days of the war, forc- leading up to 1920 they spearheaded vital ing Germany to use radio transmissions, developments (the regenerative and super- which the British could intercept—and even- heterodyne circuits, three-element vacuum tually understand as their code-breaking tube, and radio telephony, respectively) that expertise expanded. would reshape and dramatically expand Radio direction-finding techniques, devel- what radio could do. Other early radio inno- oped before but vastly improved during the vators were active in Britain, France, Ger- war, made wireless signaling at sea danger- many, and Russia as well, most working ous, as use of triangulation could readily closely with military authorities. locate a ship’s transmitter, thus placing the vessel at risk from submarine attack. Know- World War I (1914–1918) ing this danger, Allied convoys of merchant- The outbreak of war in August 1914 led to men usually maintained radio silence severe limitations being placed on private or (relying on visual signals), as did most mil- commercial use of radio in the countries itary vessels while on patrol. The German involved, as most commercial and amateur cruiser Emden, for example, was successful stations were closed down or taken over by for a long period in late 1914 largely by keep- the government. The British Royal Navy ing radio silence. Electronic jamming of supplemented its own facilities by taking enemy radio signals was often attempted, over in August 1914 the extensive Marconi- though usually with little effect. developed “All-Red” or British Empire chain On the other hand, the use of radio was of wireless stations, which provided espe- generally effective in both the British and cially useful Southern Hemisphere links German fleets and became an essential ele- where little other communication modes ment in such large naval battles as Jutland existed. Likewise, American authorities took (31 May 1916). Distance, darkness, or smoke over all foreign-owned radio facilities when all made visual signals questionable. As the United States entered the war in April spark-gap equipment was replaced (1916– 1917. Those who tried to elude these limita- 1917) by better arc, and then vacuum tube– tions and operate transmitters without a powered equipment (1918), naval radio’s license were prosecuted out of fear of radio’s value increased further. Wartime needs and use by enemy agents. The U.S. Navy closed growing equipment procurement greatly down private (ham) radio upon American accelerated the pace of radio’s technical entry into the war in 1917 and retained development. Tube-based equipment, rare supervision of all radio transmitters in the in 1914 (when obsolete spark-gap wireless United States until early 1920. Extensive telegraphy was still widespread), was be- training programs were established in many coming standard by 1918, vastly increasing countries to develop the thousands of radio radio’s capabilities by adding voice to code operators needed to supplement the few communication. available. On the American home front, the U.S. Early in the war, enemy radio transmitters Navy supervised a mandatory pooling of were often targeted, one indication of their private patents “for the duration” to encour- growing importance. At the same time, Ger- age manufacture of the best possible equip-

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ment. The U.S. Army established a large some, and vulnerable to weather or enemy Army Signal Corps research center that action. There were few trained operators, became Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which nor were enough radios available (a U.S. developed improved transmitters for use on Army division of 20,000 men rarely had land and in the air. Large government sta- more than six radios, even in 1918). But mil- tions (such as Nauen in the Berlin suburbs, itary radio’s biggest drawback was the lack and the U.S. Navy’s NAA near Washington) of senior commanders willing to use or trust were often used to transmit news reports it in battlefield conditions. Poorly organized (for use by newspapers), to stay in touch at first, Army radio users also suffered from with distant bases or colonies, or to commu- security breaches such as sending vital mes- nicate important diplomatic messages such sages in the clear rather than in code. Wire- as President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen less systems on the Western Front after 1916 Points” in late 1918. made use of conduction with the Fuller- Army radio in 1914 was crude on both phone and French systems. sides of the conflict. Antennas were obvious Several key battles—those of the Marne targets, and equipment was fragile, cumber- and Tannenberg (both 1914) among them—

Wireless or radio first became a central part of military operations during World War I. Equipment became more efficient and lighter in the course of the fighting. This is a German army radio station before Tarnopol in August 1917. (National Archives)

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were decided in part by which side made the plane radio improved dramatically in all most effective use of communications, includ- ways—equipment was lighter, range was ing wireless. Radio was more useful away greater, and operation was easier. Led by from the Western Front (in the Middle East, amateur operators, users of radio explored for example), where alternative modes of use of higher frequencies—into the very communication were rare, as was the likeli- high-frequency (VHF) spectrum range. This hood of signal interference or enemy code allowed for more compact equipment that breaking. Radio developments during World used less power while often offering greater War I included creation of trench transmitters range. Radio technology also provided the and receivers so that radio could keep com- basis for development of radio direction manders in better touch with frontline troops, finding (radar) in the late 1930s. Vehicular and the use of wireless to connect observation FM radios were just coming online in 1939– forces watching for enemy air attacks. 1940 in the United States. An early exception to radio’s limitations was the use of airplane radios to report World War II (1939–1945) artillery target spotting. Demand for such Radio proved central to the command and service led to rapid development of lighter control of virtually all military forces by the equipment with sufficient transmission start of World War II in September 1939. This range and various means of avoiding inter- was partially a matter of geography—the ference. Voice (radio telephony) communica- huge areas of the Pacific Front, or the Eastern tion to and from airplanes became possible Front in Europe, for example—but it was by 1917. By the end of the war some 600 also a matter of the huge military forces that British fighter and bomber aircraft were were spread out over that geography, mak- radio equipped. American forces experi- ing radio the only effective means of control. mented at the end of the war with radio- And this was generally a war of move- controlled fleets of bombers. ment, unlike the previous war, in which the The two decades between the wars saw fur- Western Front was essentially static. The pri- ther, if rather slow, radio progress. Vacuum macy of air power required radio for vital tube (“valve” in British terminology)– communication to and among fighter and powered continuous wave equipment became bomber forces. The narrow margin of victory standard and more rugged. Transmitter effi- in the 1940 Battle of Britain was, in part, due ciency and stability greatly improved. British to the Royal Air Force’s effective integrated tanks (by 1935) and some French armor (in use of both radio and radar. Indeed, radio 1939) began to fit radios to allow better con- had become irreplaceable. trol of larger forces, sometimes by a com- Radios had become both smaller (and thus mander in the air. Shortwave equipment was lighter, but also more robust) and more effi- being installed at some bases and naval ves- cient since the war two decades earlier. sels by the late 1920s. Edwin Howard Arm- Established radio industries in all the major strong developed FM radio in the early fighting nations were able to supply needed 1930s, which would prove invaluable in the equipment—and (in the case of the United coming war. Military services in many major States and Britain) able to provide it to allies nations became increasingly involved in as well. While Allied force radios improved radio research and equipment design. Air- throughout the war, Germany and Japan

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 373 Radio were forced to rely on 1939–1940 designs, Since 1945 which were standardized but could not be The fundamental changes in military radio improved because of heavy Allied bombing in the last six decades have included (1) an damage. That said, Axis nation equipment increasing variety of delivery modes, such as was generally well designed and well made. microwave and especially communication The British exploited VHF radio more than satellites; (2) the transistor after 1948 and the the Germans (who used the band for radar). solid state revolution after 1959; and (3) by German fighter aircraft used voice radio, the 1980s, increasing digitization. Signal while German bombers generally used radio quality was improved, communication was telegraphy—meaning the two arms of the faster, power requirements declined, and Luftwaffe could not intercommunicate well. capacity was increased thanks to signal com- Portable radios, from “manpacks” such as pression, among other factors. Combined, the “walkie-talkie” to “handie-talkie” devices these trends have made radio more effective (about the size of an early analog cell phone and secure, even in an Internet data-driven and at least as heavy), greatly expanded the age. Changing weapons systems—including value of radio in frontline operations. As in jet aircraft, missiles, and the nuclear subma- World War I, training was ramped up consid- rine—have all added important radio com- erably and large numbers of radio operators munications requirements as well. and tech nicians were provided for all the Major proving grounds for military radio fighting services. included the Korean War (1950–1953) and To a degree unprecedented in warfare, the longer Vietnam conflict (1959–1975). radio also provided one key to ultimate Korea represented essentially a replay of Allied victory when code breakers were World War II radio techniques, albeit in a eventually able to read many, if not most, much smaller space. The fighting in Vietnam German, Italian, and Japanese coded radio occurred during the transition to solid state communications, while the reverse was gen- electronics and satellite communications, erally not the case (there are important making strategic use of radio from distant exceptions). While news of the breaking of Washington headquarters more viable. Tro- Japanese codes was known right after the pospheric scatter radio and microwave radio war, British and American success against links helped to tie Vietnamese bases to a sin- German codes was held secret for three gle command-and-control system. The first decades. Not all codes were broken, nor generation of digital communications, the were many read in sufficient time to have an Automatic Digital Network, was introduced impact on operations. But the Allied code- in 1968 at the height of fighting. Miniaturiza- breaking operations—which employed tion of components made radio more thousands of personnel by the end of the portable. war at Bletchley Park north of London, The Falklands conflict (1982) between Arlington Hall in northern Virginia, and Britain and Argentina was possible thanks to Nebraska Avenue in Washington DC, among modern satellite and other radio links other places—helped immensely and also between London and the South Atlantic bat- contributed to early computer technology tlefront. The Gulf (1990–1991) and Iraq (e.g., the analog “bombe” devices and espe- (2003–present) wars introduced more digital cially the British digital Colossus). radio links for both strategic and tactical use.

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Between the two, most remaining analog Wedlake, G. E. C. 1973. SOS: The Story of Radio radio systems were phased out. At their heart, Communication, 88–129, 188–198. North however, even the new systems preserved Pomfret, VT: David & Charles. the basic concept of “wireless,” or radio. Christopher H. Sterling Radio Silence See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; Arlington Hall; Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890–1954); Army Signal Corps; Automatic Radio silence generally means avoiding mil- Digital Network (AUTODIN); Bletchley itary use of radio communications to avoid Park; Boer War Wireless (1899–1902); detection by an enemy force. Typically it Britain, Battle of (1940); Code Breaking; indicates the ability or willingness to receive Communication Satellites; de Forest, Lee (1873–1961); Enigma; Falklands Conflict but not transmit radio messages. (1982); Ferrié, Gustav-Auguste (1868–1932); When transmitting a signal, any radio’s Fessenden, Reginald A. (1866–1932); Fort location can usually be pinpointed by use of Monmouth, New Jersey; Fullerphone; triangulation or other methods. Thus observ- Ground Radio; Hooper, Stanford C. (1884– ing radio silence is intended to deny an 1955); Jamming; Jutland, Battle of (1916); enemy the ability to locate a force (including Korean War (1950–1953); Magic; Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937); Marne, Battle of ships and aircraft) by honing in on its radio (September 1914); Modulation; Naval Radio transmissions. Radio silence can also be a Stations/Service; Nebraska Avenue, valuable type of communications deception Washington DC; Propaganda and Psycho- designed to confuse an enemy. logical Warfare; Radio Silence; Spectrum The concept of radio silence dates from Frequencies; Submarine Communications; Tannenburg, Battle of (1914); Tropospheric early in the wireless/radio era when it was Scatter; Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 May realized that active electronic signaling car- 1905); Ultra; United Kingdom: Royal Corps ried the danger of giving away the location of Signals; Vacuum Tube; Vietnam War of the transmitter, and thus the location of (1959–1975); Walkie-Talkie; Y Service forces using or relying on the transmitter. One can observe radio silence and still Sources Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy, receive messages, as reception does not cre- 268–388. London: IEE. ate electronic pulses that can be traced. A Devereux, Tony. 1991. Messenger Gods of Battle: more specific concern is to preserve coded Radio, Radar, Sonar: The Story of Electronics in communication—use of line telegraph or War. London: Brassey’s. telephone links (or even older means of com- Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power. municating) can sometimes substitute for New York: Stein & Day. Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- more easily intercepted radio signals, though Electronics in the United States Navy. they are subject to wiretapping. But a coded Washington, DC: Government Printing message not sent by radio is virtually impos- Office. sible to detect by Y (listening) services. Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: There are countless historical examples of A History of Its Antecedents and Development. London: Royal Signals Institution. successful military application of radio Schubert, Paul. 1928. “Era of Military Use.” In silence. The radio silence observed by the The Electric Word: The Rise of Radio, 85–187. German High Seas Fleet prior to the Battle of New York: Macmillan. Jutland (1916) worked well enough to hide

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from the British Admiralty that Germany’s Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 16 October ships had put to sea. Another familiar exam- 1864, Reber graduated from West Point in ple is the radio silence maintained by the 1886 and received a commission in the cav- Japanese fleet sent to attack Pearl Harbor alry. After studying electrical engineering at (1941). By maintaining total radio silence after Johns Hopkins University, Reber transferred departing the Japanese naval base at Kure (in to the Signal Corps in 1894. He caught the eye other words, by receiving but not transmitting of Chief Signal Officer Adolphus W. Greely as radio messages), the location of the fleet was a man of talent and began his rise through the successfully hidden from American patrolling ranks. Lieutenant Reber authored the Signal ships and aircraft, as well as listening code Corps’ first Manual of Photography in 1896 breakers. A decade later, infiltrated Chinese and taught courses in the subject. During the “volunteers” sent in to assist North Korea Spanish-American War (1898), Reber initially (1951) went largely undetected by U.N. forces commanded the telegraph train and balloon until they attacked, thanks to their careful company in Tampa, Florida. He subsequently observation of radio silence. More recently, served in Puerto Rico, where he was in terrorists often avoid using radio (including charge of land communication and repaired cell phones) as their signals can too readily be equipment destroyed by the Spaniards. traced—sometimes quickly enough to call in After the war, Reber served in Cuba as an air strike. superintendent of military telegraph lines One often effective means of avoiding and acting chief signal officer. From 1899 detection of radio signals when radio silence to 1901, he was chief signal officer of the is not an option is to use burst communica- Department of the East, headquartered at tions, which are signals sent too quickly to be Governor’s Island, New York. As such, he successfully located. Observing radio silence conducted some of the corps’ early wireless could also be useful when trying to tune dis- experiments between stations in New York tant or weak radio signals. Harbor. He became a captain in 1900 and a Christopher H. Sterling major in 1903. That year, he was among the See also Code Breaking; Deception; Electromag- first officers detailed to the Army’s newly netic Pulse (EMP); Jutland, Battle of (1916); created General Staff. In 1904 he was a dele- Korean War (1950–1953); Meteor Burst gate to the International Electrical Congress Communications (MBC); Signals Intelligence held in St. Louis. Based on his experimental (SIGINT); Y Service and practical work during this period, Reber prepared the Signal Corps’ Handbook of Tele- phones (1903) and contributed a chapter to Reber, Samuel (1864–1933) the Handbook of Submarine Cables (1905). From 1907 to 1909 he served as chief signal officer A prominent U.S. Army Signal Corps officer in the Philippines, where he oversaw the of the late nineteenth and early twentieth ongoing transfer of the Signal Corps’ com- centuries and closely associated with the munications system to civilian control. His corps’ aviation program, Reber played a sig- next assignment was a second tour as chief nificant role in the growth and expansion of signal officer of the Department of the East. military communications as the United Promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1913, States became a global power. Reber became head of the Signal Corps Aero-

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nautical Division, which became a section Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Govern- the next year. His tenure in that position ment Printing Office. proved to be controversial, however, and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker removed him in May 1916. Although Reber remained Renaissance and Early Modern in uniform and served overseas with the Military Signals (1450–1800) American Expeditionary Force during World War I, his military career was effectively Modes of military signaling during the Euro- over. He retired from the Army as a colonel pean Renaissance and early modern era at his own request in 1919. were largely bypassed in the revolution in Reber became an executive with the new military technology, which included a redis- Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1923, covery of classical Greek and Roman mili- where he continued work similar to that he tary thinking and methods. Yet the need for had performed in the Army. As RCA’s general effective communication grew with the size foreign representative, Reber participated in of armies committed to battle. From the late a number of international communications sixteenth to the late eighteenth century, fight- conferences. He was in Tokyo in 1923 to con- ing forces became both better trained and duct radio negotiations with the Japanese more professional—and expanded by a when a devastating earthquake struck the factor of ten, making coordination and city. Escaping uninjured, Reber took charge of signaling that much more important and, at restoring the city’s cable and wireless commu- the same time, difficult. Bastioned artillery nications with the outside world, for which fortresses made siege warfare both signifi- feat the Japanese government decorated him. cant and complex, yet even modes of station- Reber died in Washington DC on 16 April ary communications failed to keep up. 1933 at age 68, and is buried in Arlington Indeed, the technology and methods of National Cemetery. military communication changed very little Rebecca Robbins Raines through this period of nearly four centuries. Land transport remained crude and slow, as See also Army Signal Corps; Greely, Adolphus did the movement of messages and men. W. (1844–1935); Spanish-American War (1898) Naval forces made the transition from oared fighting galleys to more efficient sailing Sources ships of war, but maritime signaling meth- Cullum, George P., et al., comps. 1891–1950. ods remained crude at best. Battlefield com- Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West munication remained largely as it had for Point, N.Y. 9 vols. Cambridge, MA: Riverside hundreds of years, heavily reliant on—and Press and others. subject to the problems of—couriers. Old Harbord, James G. 1934. “Samuel Reber.” Sixty- systems, long used, dominated. fifth Annual Report of the Association of At the time of the Spanish Armada (1588), Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, 150–153. New York: for example, large beacon signal fires set on The Association. English hilltops could communicate mes- Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the sages from the south coast to London (and Message Through: A Branch History of the US then the rest of England) within hours. This

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allowed relatively rapid mobilization of use of torches at night. Irishman Richard thousands of men to repel expected in- Lovell Edgeworth, in the late 1760s, pro- vaders. When the Armada ships were first posed his “tellograph,” a series of windmill sighted off the Hampshire coast, prepared sails of specific shapes and colors for which fire beacons were lit and men flowed into he recommended a system of towers and Portsmouth to protect the naval base against trained operators—one of the first proposals a possible attack. To prevent misuse or con- for a complete signaling system. fusion, the beacons were often placed under Other modes of communication appeared the control of local justices of the peace. during this period, and some were used by In the on-and-off fighting of the Thirty- military authorities during wartime emer- Years War (1618–1648) and other seventeenth- gencies. The modern newspaper was born in century wars between Catholic and Protestant the form of business newsletters and then forces, communications methods resembled weekly papers. Postal services developed those of previous centuries. Likewise, in the and expanded to distribute mail—and were often convoluted English Civil Wars (1642– often used for military messages aside from 1651), slow communications contributed to wartime situations. Town criers came into the confusion that plagued both Parliamen- widespread use as well. tarian and Royalist forces. Two Scottish Christopher H. Sterling uprisings against England in 1705 and again See also American Wars to 1860; Fire/ in 1745–1746 relied on use of a “fiery cross” Flame/ Torch; Flags; Horses and Mules; (a wooden cross singed on the ends) carried Lights and Beacons; Medieval Military by runners to call up Scots aged sixteen to Signaling (500–1500 CE); Military Roads; sixty to an agreed place of rendezvous. Bag- Music Signals; Pigeons; Postal Services; Sema phore (Mechanical Telegraphs) pipes led the Scots to battle at Culloden (1746) and elsewhere. The conquering Eng- Sources lish built an extensive series of military roads Hale, John Rigby. 1986. War and Society in to better control occupied areas of Scotland Renaissance Europe, 1450–1620. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. and increase the pace of their communica- Hall, Bert S. 2001. Weapons and Warfare in Renais- tions. The Seven Years War (the French and sance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Indian War in North America, 1756–1763) Tactics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University saw usage of traditional modes of Native Press. American signaling often not much different Kitchen, Frank. 1988. Fire over England: The Armada Beacons. Brighton, UK: Tower from those of the European powers, which Publications. had changed little over time. Parker, Geoffrey. 1996. The Military Revolution: There were some innovations. Many sys- Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, tems of mechanical semaphore were devel- 1500–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- oped. The invention of the telescope in 1608 sity Press. helped to revive the use of visual signaling Somerset (UK) County Council. “Beacons and Coastal Defences.” [Online information; methods and prompted several early sema- retrieved September 2005.] http://www phore systems. In 1684, Robert Hook offered .somerset.gov.uk/archives/ASH/Beacons a semaphore system that utilized various .htm. suspended shapes in the daytime and the Woods, David L. (1965). A History of Tactical Communications Techniques. Orlando, FL:

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Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, South Carolina), and during World War I he 1974). commanded the Atlantic Fleet Submarine Force. After a series of brief assignments— Robison, Samuel Shelburne including Boston Navy Yard commandant, (1867–1952) military governor of Santo Domingo, and General Board member—Robison hoisted One of the brightest and most innovative offi- his flag as commander-in-chief of the United cers of his generation, Samuel Robison was a States Battle Fleet on 30 June 1923. pioneer in the U.S. Navy’s adoption, develop- Robison’s expertise in radio communica- ment, and use of radio communications. tions surpassed that of any previous fleet Born in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, on 10 commander in the U.S. Navy, and he used his May 1867, Robison attended the Naval Acad- expertise as a basis for reform. He pushed emy from 1884 to 1888. He was commissioned vigorously for modern equipment, oversaw an ensign in the summer of 1890 and spent the establishment of communications depart - most of his early career on the Asiatic Station. ments on combatant ships, and encouraged During the Spanish-American War, he saw the building of a new radio school on the action at Manila Bay on USS Boston, fighting West Coast. Robison also took aggressive alongside George Dewey’s flagship Olympia. steps to improve the communications effi- After the war, Robison served on a battleship ciency of his subordinates. Toward this end he (Alabama) and a destroyer (Hull) before being achieved remarkable success. The month placed in charge of the Radio Division at the before Robison assumed command of the Bat- Bureau of Equipment. Robison had a small tle Fleet, the average time to deliver a radio staff and spent much of his time personally dispatch within the fleet was slightly more supervising tests of wireless apparatus. Pursu- than half an hour. Two years later, the average ing a policy initiated by his predecessor, Robi- was down to just four minutes. By the time son strove to procure as many Robison relinquished command in August American-made radios as possible. When his 1926, ship-to-ship radio had become the tour ended in July 1906, the Navy was using fleet’s most important system of tactical com- radio equipment manufactured by at least five munication. different American companies. Robison served as commandant of the While serving as head of the Radio Divi- Thirteenth Naval District from 1926 to 1928 sion, Robison, in cooperation with several and as superintendent of the Naval Acad- others, wrote an instruction manual on wire- emy from 1928 until his retirement in 1931. less telegraphy for use by naval electricians. He later coauthored a comprehensive history First published in July 1906, it covered both of naval tactics with his wife, Mary. Robison the theoretical underpinnings and the prac- died in Glendale, California, on 20 Novem- tical applications of wireless. Robison’s man- ber 1952. ual went through eight revised editions and Timothy Wolters served as the U.S. Navy’s standard textbook See also Fiske, Bradley A. (1854–1942); Hooper, on radio communications for the better part Stanford C. (1884–1955); Radio; Spanish- of two decades. American War (1898); U.S. Navy Between 1911 and 1917 Robison had three Sources seagoing command tours (Cincinnati, Jupiter,

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Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- the 1890s. Improved elements of this were Electronics in the United States Navy. patented in 1893. Washington, DC: Government Printing About 1908, Rogers began to experiment Office. Robison, S. S., et al. 1906. Manual of Wireless with underground and underwater wireless Telegraphy for the Use of Naval Electricians. reception, trying out different types of wire Washington, DC: Government Printing and cable antennas with varied designs to Office. receive distant wireless signals. To improve Robison, Samuel S. 1911. Manual of Wireless reception, he utilized an extensive under- Telegraphy for the Use of Naval Electricians. ground (or underwater) array of antenna Revised 2nd ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press (and later editions, as revised wire, with multiple “legs” often extending by others). out many yards from the central reception Robison, Samuel S., and Mary L. Robison. 1942. point. He experimented with many designs A History of Naval Tactics from 1530 to 1930: and types of antenna material. After working The Evolution of Tactical Maxims. Annapolis, in other areas (including airplane stability MD: Naval Institute Press. and means of generating wireless signals), he resumed his experimental wireless reception work in 1916. Rogers, James Harris (1850–1929) The Rogers system, the first successful low-frequency approach, allowed reception in North America of European radio signals. James Rogers was an early twentieth- His system was first tested in front of naval century radio pioneer who developed im- officials late in 1916 and again early in 1917. portant underground and underwater radio Rogers’s work was the subject of nine reception systems used by the U.S. Navy patents granted to him from 1916 to 1919. during World War I. His work helped to lay Rogers’s health began to decline in 1917 the groundwork for Cold War very low fre- after he was overcome by monoxide gas in a quency submarine communications. Maryland cave while working to improve Rogers was born on 13 July 1850 in Frank - his reception system. With public announce- lin, Tennessee, and was educated by private ment of the system and its use after World tutors and then at St. Charles College in Lon- War I, he received two honorary doctorates don. His initial experience in electrical com- and other awards. Rogers died at his munications concerned telegraphy, and in Hyattsville home on 12 December 1929. 1872 he shared a patent with his brother for Christopher H. Sterling a system of embossed telegraphy—the first See also Radio; Submarine Communications; of nearly fifty patents he would receive. He Telegraph served as chief electrician at the U.S. Capitol from 1877 to 1883. Sources Bearden, Tom. “The Tom Bearden Website.” Rogers settled in the Hyattsville, Mary- [Online information; retrieved April 2007.] land, area in 1895. He was one of the inven- http://www.cheniere.org/books/part1/ tors of printing telegraph devices, and his toc.htm. full-size working models saw commercial Rogers, John H. “Underground & Under - service on a circuit between Baltimore and water Radio.” [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] http://www.rexresearch.com/ Washington DC, as well as in New York, in rogers/1rogers.htm.

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Secor, H. Winfield. 1919. “America’s Greatest began. Starting with one wireless listening War Invention.” Electrical Experimenter post (in Stockton), Room 40 soon set up many March: 787–789, 834–835. others, the origin of the “Y Service” that oper- Taylor, A. Hoyt. 1948. “1917–1918: World War I, Great Lakes and Belmar.” In Radio Reminis- ated in both world wars. These posts, often cences: A Half Century. Washington, DC: U.S. staffed in part with volunteers as well as Naval Research Laboratory. advisers from Marconi, focused on intercept- ing as many German signals as possible—by the end of the war, Room 40 had dealt with Room 40 some 15,000 messages. But having informa- tion was no help if it was not effectively com- Room 40 was the designation (and originally municated. The British fleet suffered at the actual location within the Old Admiralty Jutland (May–June 1916) because of poor or building in London) of the British Naval late communication from the Admiralty of Intelligence Division during World War I. It what Room 40 had learned about German was created in October 1914 by Rear Admiral naval plans and actions. H. F. Oliver, chief of the War Staff, and oper- On 17 January 1917, Room 40 intercepted ated throughout the war. In 1917 it became a secret communication from German For- more formally known as the Intelligence eign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the Division of the Naval Staff. German ambassador in Washington DC. The In order to obtain vital intelligence, message took cryptographers nearly a Britain cut Germany’s undersea telegraph month to fully decode, but its importance cables on the first full day of World War I, was quickly realized. The Zimmermann thus forcing Germany to use radio—which Telegram, as it would soon become known, could be heard and intercepted. But the revealed German plans to begin unrestricted British could not read the German codes. In submarine warfare in the Atlantic. Knowing a stroke of luck, Britain obtained a naval that this could bring the United States into codebook from the wreck of the German the war, Germany offered an alliance to Mex- cruiser Magdeburg (off the coast of what was ico if it would keep the United States occu- then Russian Estonia), thanks to fast work pied, plus a commitment to return former by its Russian ally. Within months, the code Mexican territory in Texas, New Mexico, and breakers of Room 40 had copies of all three Arizona. British intelligence shared the con- German naval codes and were thus able to tents of the memo (but not how they had read most German wireless traffic for much intercepted and decoded it) with the Amer- of the war. ican ambassador in London, who immedi- Captain (later Admiral Sir) Reginald ately informed Washington, thus airing and “Blinker” Hall directed much of this effort, thwarting the German plan. Zimmermann, under the overall leadership of Sir Alfred perhaps more honest than diplomatically Ewing. Hall gathered a group of naval per- astute, admitted the telegram’s content. The sonnel (and soon some civilians) who could United States declared war on Germany in be counted on to keep quiet about what they April 1917. knew. Some were fluent in German, others In 1919, the separate naval signals intelli- interested in puzzles or math. Few knew any- gence operation was combined with the par- thing about ciphers and codes when the war allel army entity to form the Government Code & Cipher School, which would operate

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in London until World War II, moving in During the 1930s, Rowlett and his handful 1939 to Bletchley Park. Unlike the situation of colleagues, after a lengthy period of train- after World War II, knowledge of Room 40 ing under Friedman, worked as both cryp- and its role was released to the public by tologists and cryptanalysts. They compiled the mid-1920s, just a few years after the end codes and ciphers for use by the U.S. Army of World War I. and began solving a number of foreign sys- Christopher H. Sterling tems, notably Japanese. In the mid-1930s, See also Bletchley Park; Code, Codebook; Rowlett and his colleagues solved the first Government Code & Cipher School Japanese machine system for encipherment (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Jutland, Battle of of diplomatic communications, known to (1916); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); the Americans as Red. He played a crucial United Kingdom: Royal Navy; World role in protecting American communications War I; Y Service when he originated the “stepped maze” con- Sources cept for a coding machine, which became Beesly, Patrick. 1982. Room 40: British Naval the electric cipher machine, or SIGABA, the Intelligence 1914–1918. New York: Harcourt device that was never solved by the Axis Brace Jovanovich. during the war. (In 1964, Congress awarded Grant, Robert M. 2004. U-Boat Hunters: Code Break - ers, Divers and the Defeat of the U-Boats, 1914– Rowlett $100,000 as partial compensation for 1918. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. his classified cryptologic inventions.) From Hoy, Hugh Cleland. 1934. 40 O.B., or How the 1939 to 1940, Rowlett played a major role in War Was Won. London: Hutchinson. solving a much more sophisticated Japanese James, William. 1956. The Code Breakers of Room diplomatic cipher machine, nicknamed Pur- 40. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Tuchman, Barbara. 1966. The Zimmermann ple by the United States When asked what Telegram. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan. his greatest contribution to this effort was, Rowlett once said that he was the one who believed it could be done. He was credited Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998) with leading the team that did the mind- numbing work over a period of eighteen An important American cryptographer for months. At American entry into World War six decades, Frank Rowlett helped to develop II, Rowlett became an Army officer and rose the American SIGABA code machine, break to the rank of colonel. the Japanese Purple code, and served with the In addition to having highly developed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1950s cryptanalytic skills, Rowlett was a good and then the National Security Agency (NSA) manager, and he rose quickly within the in the 1960s. Army’s signals intelligence organization. Rowlett was born in Rose Hill, Virginia, on From 1943 to 1945 he was chief of the Gen- 2 May 1908 and graduated with an honors eral Cryptanalytic Branch, and from 1945 to degree in chemistry and mathematics in 1929 1947 he served as chief of the Intelligence from Emory and Henry College. On 1 April Division. From 1949 to 1952, he was technical 1930 he was hired by William F. Friedman, director in the Office of Operations of the who was building a small staff of army cryp- Armed Forces Security Agency, the predeces- tologists for the new Army Signal Intelli- sor to NSA. Rowlett differed with General gence Service. Ralph Canine, the first director of NSA, over personnel movements, including his own.

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Acting on his differences, he transferred to many senior leaders in 1939 weakened the CIA from 1952 until 1958. He then returned force, however, and it fared poorly against to NSA as a special assistant to the agency’s the Finns in 1939–1940 and the German inva- next four directors. In 1965, Rowlett founded sion a year later. A huge number of fighter and became commandant of the National aircraft and large amounts of related equip- Cryptologic School. He retired from federal ment were provided by the United States service in 1966. under lend-lease. In 1990, NSA’s highest achievement award During the Cold War the Soviet air force was named for Rowlett. He died at the age of was divided into three segments: Strategic ninety on 29 June 1998 in Gaithersburg, Aviation was focused on long-range Maryland, last of the original trio of Army bombers; Frontal Aviation was concerned code breakers hired by Friedman. with battlefield air defense, close air support, Christopher H. Sterling and interdiction; and Military Transport Avi- See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Electric ation served both. The Air Defense Forces Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, “SIGABA”); focused on air defense and interceptor air- Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); Magic; craft as a separate and distinct service. Some National Security Agency (NSA); Signals 500 air bases were operational, about a fifth Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra of them in the Arctic regions of the country. Coordination over this huge territory Source Rowlett, Frank B. 1998. The Story of Magic: required effective communications. Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union Laguna Hills, CA: Aegeon Park Press. in December 1991, the aircraft and personnel of the Soviet air force were divided among the many newly independent states. Russia Russia/Soviet Union: Air Force received the majority of these forces—approx- imately 40 percent of the aircraft and 65 per- The Soviet (later Russian) air force has gone cent of the manpower—to form the new but through a varied history, developing from a smaller Russian Federation air force. By the backward service with obsolete aircraft in late 1990s, limited funding severely restricted the 1930s to one of the world’s pre-eminent what had become a defensive and declining services at the height of the Cold War, to the service. Declines in Russia’s electronics indus- decline of recent years. Its communication try, no longer as cutting-edge as it had been facilities have followed a similar arc. under Soviet rule, contributed to the deterio- While Russian flying preceded the start ration. Further, the country’s air surveillance of World War I, the Soviet air force was and command system changed dramatically founded as the “Workers’ and Peasants’ Air after 1991, as Russia lost the opportunity to Fleet” in 1918. After being placed under con- maintain forward-positioned, ground-based trol of the Red Army in 1930, its influence on air surveillance networks. aircraft design became greater. Germany Christopher H. Sterling helped advise the buildup of Soviet air See also Russia/Soviet Union: Army power in the 1920s and 1930s. The first big test of the Soviet air force came in 1936 with Sources the Spanish Civil War, when Russian pilots Lee, Asher. 1959. The Soviet Air and Rocket Forces. helped to support the Republic. The purge of New York: Praeger.

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Murphy, Paul J. 1984. The Soviet Air Forces. distance electric telegraph network in 1853 Jefferson, NC: McFarland. and completed the project two years later. Nikunen, Heikki. 2005. “The Current State of The network was approximately 6,000 miles the Russian Air Force.” [Online information; retrieved November 2006.] http://www in length and extended from Finland down .sci.fi/~fta/ruaf.htm. to the Crimea (where it was useful in the Steinman, Victor A. 1995. “Soviet Air Power 1854–1856 Crimean War against Britain and In Perspective: Development and Impact, France) via St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, 1925–1942.” [Online article; retrieved and Odessa. Further lines led to the Baltic April 2006.] http://www.globalsecurity provinces and to Warsaw. Military mobile .org/ military/library/report/1995/SVA .htm. telegraph parks were formed in September 1870. They were independent units under the control of the General Engineers Depart- Russia/Soviet Union: Army ment. These were disbanded in 1894, but one telegraph company was introduced into Russia (to 1917), the Soviet Union (1917– each engineer battalion. The telephone was 1991), and then Russia again (since 1991) more slowly adopted and was long limited share a fascinating and complex military to a few large cities, connecting St. Peters- communications history. Through the early burg and Moscow only in the 1890s. nineteenth century and Napoleon’s march Russian telegraph signalmen were orga- on Moscow (1812), Tsarist Russia was back- nized as part of the army engineers, as in ward and well behind European military many other European forces. In actual battle, practice. Modes of communication were tra- they would be attached to a corps headquar- ditional ones, used for hundreds of years, ters. Thirteen telegraph sections were based including flags, couriers, and pigeons. Mes- in specific Russian fortifications. By the early sage transmission was slow. twentieth century, after the disastrous Russo- Mechanical semaphore networks were Japanese War (1904–1905), these forces oper- established during the reign of Nicholas I as ated both wire and wireless telegraphy the first line opened in 1824 between the equipment (as well as heliographs for day- capital of St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga. time and lanterns for nighttime signaling). By 1834 it had been extended to the naval The wireless companies were based in base of Kronstadt and by 1839 reached fortresses with mobile Marconi systems. By southeast to Warsaw (then part of Russia). 1912, specialized training had been estab- The system and signaling method used was lished. The same forces also provided horse based on that of Claude Chappe by Pierre- and bicycle courier services. Jacques Chatau. Some 2,000 men were The Russian army was an early user of employed, with four to six at each signaling radio communication in a military operation, tower. The St. Petersburg terminal station but Russian signaling forces crumbled under (on the roof of the Winter Palace) survives to the pressure of World War I, as demonstrated this day. Elements of this system may also at the Battle of Tannenberg, 23–29 August have been employed as late as the Crimean 1914. During the fighting, Russian forces War, used primarily for government and mil- used wireless to transmit orders to their itary messages. army forces. But this was also the first time The German firm of Siemens & Halske that radio intercept was employed in war- started construction of the Russian long- fare, as the Germans were monitoring the

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airwaves and received the Russian orders the Lend-Lease Program during World War (which were sent in clear language, and not II. Other U.S. radio and electronic equipment code) almost as soon as the intended Russian was taken from downed American aircraft, recipients did. By the time Russia pulled out and some was reverse-engineered for Soviet of the war (1917), most army signaling had manufacture. reverted to couriers and pigeons with occa- Through the Cold War decades, Soviet sig- sional use of wired and wireless telegraphy. nal troops operated tactical radio and wire Russian leader Vladimir Lenin ordered communications networks and intercepted the manufacture of wireless equipment, enemy signals for combat intelligence pur- which began in 1918. Operators were in such poses. They also operated strategic under- short supply that they had to be trained in ground cable, microwave, and satellite the field. The Chief Signal Department of communications systems. The Soviets began the Red Army was created in October 1919, launching their military Cosmos and other and the posts of chiefs of the signal troops of communication satellite series in 1962. There the fronts, armies, divisions, and smaller were signal corps academies and schools in units were instituted. The Civil War (1918– many areas, including Kiev, Cherepovetz, 1922) destroyed much of the country’s com- Ryazan, Gorky, Kemerovo, and Ulyanovsk. munications infrastructure, and thus heavy By the early 1970s, Soviet planners used use was made of couriers and mounted dis- the term “radio-electronic combat” (REC) to patch riders. Combat exploits of the signalers refer to their integrated program to disrupt were highly regarded by the Revolutionary enemy military command, control, and com- Military Council of the new regime. munications (C3) at all levels. Embodied in The new Soviet Union sought communica- the Soviet doctrine for REC is an integrated tions technology from abroad. Ericsson, for effort centered on reconnaissance, electronic example, provided designs for telephone countermeasures (jamming), physical attack networks and equipment that were by 1927 (destruction), and deception operations. built under license in what had become Each of these elements contributes to the Leningrad. Russian forces lost a huge disruption of effective command and control amount of their communications equipment at a critical decision point in battle at strate- and thus capability during the German mid- gic, operational, and tactical levels. At the 1941 invasion. It took about a year before strategic level, the Soviet REC effort may Soviet factories, relocated to the Ural Moun- involve simultaneous operations to deceive tains, could begin to replace radios and other Western intelligence collection programs and tactical and strategic communications gear. to jam strategic C3. The Soviets continued to In the interim, Soviet forces made extensive enhance their strategic REC mission capabil- use of traditional couriers for military mes- ity right to the end of the Cold War. saging. Production of wireless equipment Soviet attempts to counter enemy strategic was stepped up, and during the Battle of command and control in wartime would Stalingrad, 9,000 wireless sets were in use, involve disrupting the entire range of com- while in the Belorussian operations of 1944, munication media available for strategic C3. as many as 27,000 wireless sets were used. Using their concept of radiablokada (radio Considerable American radio equipment blockade), the Soviets would attempt to iso- was shipped to the Soviet Union as part of late entire geographic regions and prevent

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deployed forces from communicating with operating and alternate frequencies, and they their headquarters. had to consider the interference caused by In the mid-1980s, the Soviets stopped their power transmission lines, communications routine jamming of foreign radio broadcasts lines, and electric transportation contact sys- directed at Soviet audiences, though high- tems. Many radio transmitter operators were frequency (HF) jamming antennas remained killed in the initial battles, as Chechens in all major Soviet urban areas, available for focused on soldiers carrying radios or anten- wartime or crisis use as a strategic counter- nas. To solve this problem, Russian radio measure asset. The transmitter power and operators began concealing their antennas. range capability of these systems made them However, this led them to hide their whip suitable for employment against North antennas in a pocket or under a shirt, and in Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) HF their haste to reassemble the radio while communications. The large number of high- under fire, forgetting to reconnect the antenna. power transmitters and long-range direc- The Russians noted that the Chechen forces tional antennas under the Soviet Ministry of used Motorola and Nokia cellular radios and Communications constituted an additional leased satellite channels on foreign relays. pool of strategic jamming assets. Used for This enabled them to establish communica- the worldwide broadcast of such programs tions between base stations and to maintain as Radio Moscow, these facilities could be quality mobile radio communications. employed effectively against U.S. and NATO Multiple after-action recommendations by high-frequency communications. Russian communication specialists included In the bitter 1990s war with Chechen the need to develop more convenient and nationalists, the Russian army’s most signif- lighter-weight gear for radio operators, icant technical problem was establishing and including wire-type antennas; outfitting maintaining communications. The break- units with cellular and trunk-line adaptable down occurred at platoon, company, and radios; putting an indicator lamp on the radio battalion levels. Some of the problems were sets to highlight problems; developing a com- clearly the fault of Russian planners, such as mon radio storage battery; and providing the decision during the battle for Grozny to alternate antennas capable of automatic con- transmit all messages in the clear. This mis- nections in case primary antennas become step obviously allowed the Chechen force disabled. Other recommendations included not only to monitor all transmissions and using radios with automatic frequency tuning thus prepare for what was coming next, but together with devices for guaranteeing scram- also to insert false messages in Russian com- bling and masking speech; using HF radios of munications traffic. The Russians soon armored vehicles with a supplementary turned to message scramblers. receiver; developing an ability to bounce sig- The chief factor in the communications nals off buildings or retransmitting them at breakdown, however, was simply urban intersections or via airborne platforms; locat- structures. High-rise buildings and towers ing very high frequency/ultra-high frequency impeded transmissions, especially those in radios at a distance of three to five times the the high to ultra-high frequencies. Communi- height of reinforced concrete upper stories or cation officers had to consider the nature of iron roof structures; putting antennas near radio wave propagation and carefully select windows or doors of upper stories when a

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radio is in a building; using coaxial cable (or Union’s naval forces were not a primary part existing television cable) to remotely operate of the Tsarist regime in Russia. This was radios from basements; and using beam never more evident than with the fleet’s antennas to maintain communications with stunning loss to Japan in the 1905 Battle of a distant site. Tsushima. With the 1917 revolution, vessels Christopher H. Sterling and Cliff Lord of the former imperial fleet made up the See also Chappe, Claude (1763–1805); European new Red Fleet, though well into the 1930s it Late Nineteenth-Century Wars; was a dilapidated coastal defense force of lit- Russia/Soviet Union: Air Force; Russia: tle power. U.S. destroyers obtained by the Navy; Tannenberg, Battle of (1914); Warsaw navy under the Lend-Lease Program made Pact (1955–1991); World War I; World War II up part of the growing Soviet fleet during World War II, their main role being to protect Sources Department of Defense. 1989. “Radio-Electronic Allied convoys to Murmansk. The postwar Combat.” In Soviet Military Power 1989: Soviet submarine fleet, initially based on Prospects for Change. Washington, DC: German U-boat designs, grew substantially Department of Defense. in the Cold War years. The emphasis on sub- Howard, William L. 2002. “Russian Military marines (between 300 and 400 ships after Radios.” [Online information; retrieved April 1955, with perhaps half using nuclear pro- 2007.] http://www.armyradio.com/ publish/Articles/William_Howard pulsion by the 1980s) meant that communi- _Russian/Russian_Mil_Radio.htm. cation links with those submarines were International Collectors Group. “USSR Military among the top electronics concerns for the Tube Transistor Radio Gallery.” [Online fleet. information; retrieved April 2006.] http:// The first helicopter carrier aircraft ap- users.iptelecom.net.ua/~ussradio/. RussiaSpaceWeb.com. 2005. “Spacecraft: peared only in 1968–1969. The Soviet navy Military.” 2005. [Online information; never embraced the American fascination retrieved April 2006.] http://www with carrier-based aviation, but fearing .russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft American aircraft carriers it invested con- _military.html. siderable resources in antishipping cruise Thomas, Timothy L. 1999. “The Battle of missiles launched from submarines, surface Grozny: Deadly Classroom for Urban Combat.” Parameters (Summer): 87–102. ships, and shore-based aircraft. By the mid- Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. “Russia.” The Old 1980s the Soviet navy, by then with some Telegraphs, 180–182. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & carriers of its own, was the largest in the Littlefield. world in terms of number of ships, and sec- ond in tonnage only to the United States. During the Cold War, the Soviet navy was Russia/Soviet Union: Navy divided into several major fleets including the Northern, Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and The Soviet navy of the twentieth century Baltic fleets. The Caspian Flotilla came under was often called the Red Navy, and was one the Black Sea Fleet command, while the of increasing power into the final decades Indian Ocean Squadron drew its units from (1970–1990) of the Cold War. and was under the jurisdiction of the Pacific The Soviet navy traces its history back to Ocean Fleet. Other components included the at least Peter the Great in the 1700s. Because Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry (their equiv- of its huge landmass and location, the Soviet alent of the U.S. Marine Corps) and coastal

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artillery. Naval doctrine recognized the Seychelles in the 1980s enabled Soviet naval importance of electronic warfare at least by forces to repair their ships, fly ocean recon- the 1960s and within two decades had devel- naissance flights, establish communications oped a strong ability to jam, deceive, or inter- (fleet radio as well as listening or intercept) cept enemy communications, while at the posts, and maintain forward deployments. same time developing redundant systems The Soviet fleet was designed primarily to for Soviet vessels to ensure their survival. intercept convoys across the Atlantic The need to strike at and destroy Western intended to support North Atlantic Treaty naval communication facilities was a central Organization forces. part of naval planning and war games. With the demise of the Soviet Union and As Norman Polmar reported in his guide end of the Cold War in 1991, the mari- to the Cold War Soviet navy, “Soviet combat time force was re-formed into the Russian aircraft, surface ships, and submarines have navy. The navy quickly declined to a mere electronic warfare equipment to (1) detect shadow of its once powerful profile, how- threats, (2) collect Electronic Intelligence ever, as many ships were laid (or broken) up, (ELINT), (3) identify friendly forces (IFF), quality and morale suffered, and accidents and (4) counter threats (ECM).” The Soviet rose. navy operated a fleet of intelligence collec- Christopher H. Sterling tion vessels, many looking like the merchant See also Electronic Countermeasures/ fishing trawlers or factory ships from which Electronic Warfare (ECM/EW); Identifica- they were converted. Various classes of these tion, Friend or Foe (IFF); Tsushima, Battle of included satellite and other communication (27–28 May 1905) links as well as extensive electronics eaves- dropping capability. These and a number of Sources communications ships were launched in dif- Polmar, Norman. 1991. The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy. 4th ed. Annapolis, MD: ferent classes from the 1950s into the 1980s. Naval Institute Press. The navy also operated nearly a dozen cable “Signal Flags: Soviet Navy.” 2005. http://www ships by the 1980s to lay and repair undersea .fotw.net/flags/xf~ru.html (accessed April communication cables as well as seafloor 2006). hydrophone (listening) devices. Access to ports and airfields in Vietnam, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, South Yemen, and

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Safford, Laurance F. (1890–1973) was the beginning of the OP-20-G naval sig- nals intelligence unit. Often called the “father” of U.S. Navy cryp- Safford turned out to be perfect for the tography, Safford was a key figure in the task at hand. He promoted the effort development of American military cryptol- throughout the Navy, attracting brilliant ogy between the world wars. minds like his own, including Agnes Meyer Laurance (some sources spell it Laurence) Driscoll, Joseph Rochefort, Joseph Wenger, Safford was born in 1890 in Massachusetts and others who were to lead the Navy’s and graduated fifteenth in the Naval Acad- cryptographic effort through World War II emy class of 1916. His early career on board and into the postwar period. He began orga- several different naval vessels gave no indi- nizing a worldwide naval collection and cation of his future role in cryptologic his- direction-finding effort, so that when the tory, and his constantly rumpled look hid United States entered World War II it already an affinity for mathematics and machines. had a system of established radio intercept He was also attracted to chess and other and listening stations (the first was in Shang- intellectual pursuits. In January 1924 he was hai). Due to naval officer rotation policies, shifted from command of a minesweeper off Safford was reassigned in 1926, returning the China coast to head the “research desk” three years later. He remained with the code (the code and signal section) within the work except for one final sea tour of duty Office of Naval Communications (OP-20), (1932–1936). Meanwhile, the effort that he located in the Navy Building in Washington headed broke Japanese naval codes and DC. In the beginning his prime task was to began mechanizing its code operations with exploit a Japanese naval codebook (from the the addition of IBM equipment. Safford was Japanese consulate in New York) that had directly involved with building crypto- been secretly photographed. To do this he graphic machines and collaborated with the had four civilian clerical employees. This Army’s Frank Rowlett in the invention of the SIGABA device, one of the few cipher

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machines never broken by any country dur- Sources ing World War II. Parker, Frederick D. 1994. Pearl Harbor Revisited: Safford promoted collaboration with the United States Navy Communications Intelli- gence 1924–1941. Fort Meade, MD: National Army on several fronts and was largely Security Agency. responsible for the Navy entry into a joint Safford, Laurance, and Joseph N. Wenger. effort with the Army on the Japanese diplo- 1994. U.S. Naval Communications Intelligence matic systems. He recognized the signs of Activities. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park war that appeared in the diplomatic traffic Press. (on which OP-20-G had been told to con- centrate) and tried to get a warning message to Pearl Harbor several days before the Satellite Communications attack, but was rebuffed by the director of Naval Communication. Military satellites are usually strategic or tac- Organizationally, he promoted a decen- tical. Strategic satellites are typically net- tralized system with naval communications worked through fixed ground stations. They intelligence sections near Seattle, in Hon- allow communications between stations olulu, and in Manila (with the Japanese inva- served by the same satellite using any num- sion in 1941, it shifted first to Corregidor ber of routes. Tactical satellite systems, on and then Australia). He assigned the chief the other hand, utilize mobile earth stations. Japanese naval code problem to the Hawaii Military users have traditionally avoided station and named Joseph Rochefort to head commercial satellites because of security con- the effort, using the very best Navy cryptan- cerns, though increased use of encryption alysts. Rochefort’s team broke JN-25 (the eases that worry. American designation for the Japanese naval A communications satellite must have a operational code) in time to help a U.S. Navy receiver and a transmitter, antennas for both task force to win the landmark battle of Mid- functions, a method to convert the received way in mid-1942. message at the transmitter, and a source of Disputes over organization (and his being electrical power. The ground portion of a one of those blamed for U.S. forces being satellite system consists of a transmitter, a surprised by the Pearl Harbor attack) even- receiver, antennas, and a means of connect- tually froze his career path, and he was ing the station to end users. The most obvi- shunted aside for the remainder of the war. ous difference between a satellite ground Safford retired from active duty as a captain station and a point-to-point microwave sta- in early 1953 and died two decades later, on tion is that the satellite high-gain antenna is 2 March 1973. able to track the satellite. Christopher H. Sterling The U.S. Army and Navy first experi- mented with reflecting radio signals off the See also Electric Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, moon in the 1940s and 1950s. On 11 January “SIGABA”); Magic; Midway, Battle of (3–6 June 1942); Nebraska Avenue, Washington 1946 the Army reflected radio signals off the DC; OP-20-G; Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); moon. On 24 July 1954, as a part of the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Navy’s Communication Moon Relay Project (CMR), James H. Trexler, an engineer at the

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Naval Research Laboratory, became the first tions by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE) person to transmit his voice into space and was launched, and a taped Christmas mes- have it returned to earth. The CMR was first sage from President Dwight Eisenhower was tested and publicly revealed in January 1960 broadcast from orbit. SCORE was also used and operated between Hawaii and Mary- to transmit messages between Arizona, land with sixteen teleprinter channels at the Texas, and Georgia. SCORE was a store-and- rate of sixty words per minute. Within two forward satellite, receiving a message from years, the system had been expanded to earth, storing it on a tape, and then retrans- include ship-to-shore communications. The mitting it on command from an earth station. CMR was the only operational satellite com- On 12 August 1960, the ECHO 1 satellite, a munications relay system in the world until passive aluminized Mylar balloon, was the Defense Satellite Communications Sys- launched, and experiments with radio and tem began operation on 16 June 1966. television transmission began in earnest. The All of these experiments were intended to first geosynchronous satellite, Syncom III, utilize the theoretical advantages that satellite launched in August 1964. The Syncom series communications offer over the traditional was a joint project of the Department of methods of long-haul communications, such Defense and the National Aeronautics and as underwater cables, landlines, microwave Space Administration to demonstrate the transmission, and television signals. Subma- economic viability of satellite communica- rine cables are expensive to lay and lack the tions. large capacity necessary to meet the contin- The Soviet Union followed its initial Sput- ual demand for more circuits. Because nik by launching more satellites than any microwave transmissions travel in a straight other nation. The Soviet space program line, relay stations have to be constructed ranked second only to the United States in about every thirty-five miles. The relay sta- the resources devoted to its efforts. Most tions must receive, amplify, and retransmit Soviet military satellites, regardless of type, the signal. Normal radio transmissions are were named Cosmos. In addition, “civilian” subject to atmospheric disturbances, such as satellites, the use of which the Soviets did sun spots. The optimum altitude for a com- not want to explain, also received the Cos- munications satellite is 22,300 miles above mos designation. In the three decades to the equator, where the satellite appears to be 1990, most, if not all, satellites launched by stationary because it is in a geosynchronous the Soviets had some military functions. In orbit. A constellation of three such satellites, the post-Soviet era, Russian military satel- positioned at 120 degrees from each other, lites are identified as such, but still receive with the capability of relaying communica- the Cosmos identifier. tions between the satellites, provides com- Development of military satellite commu- munications to virtually every part of the nications drew heavily on advancements in earth except the North and South poles. the construction of commercial satellites. The On 4 October 1957, military and civilian fact that the Intelsat IV satellite had more communications changed with the launch than 4,000 two-way voice channels was a of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1. On 18 powerful incentive for developers of high- December 1958, the U.S. Signal Communica- capacity military communications systems.

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The number of nations providing domestic satellites operate in the ultra-high frequen- satellite service has increased dramatically cies at 225 to 400 MHz; DSCS satellites oper- since Canada started the service in 1972 and ate in the super-high frequencies at 7,250 to the United States launched its first in 1974. 8,400 MHz; and Milstar satellites operate in Planners at the U.S. Department of Defense the extremely high frequencies at 22 to 44 increasingly realized that a specialized archi- GHz. A fourth system, the Air Force Satellite tecture for military satellite communications Communications System (AFSATCOM), is (MILSATCOM) was necessary. The first MIL- supported by the three basic systems. SATCOM architecture was published in 1976 AFSATCOM has no dedicated satellites but and has been refined numerous times to meet uses channels or transponders on the satel- changing requirements and advances in tech- lites of the MILSATCOM system. The nology. The architecture has three parts: AFSATCOM is used to transmit Emergency mobile and tactical, wideband, and protected Action Messages and Single Integrated systems. Users are grouped together accord- Operation Plan messages. ing to their requirements that can be met by The FLTSATCOM system provided near a common satellite system. worldwide coverage through its constellation Development of more sophisticated elec- of geosynchronous satellites. The FLTSAT- tronics has increased the capability of sat - COM system was the first operational system ellite communication. Its importance to fielded by the Department of Defense to sup- military operations during the Gulf War port tactical operations. The first FLTSAT- (1990–1991) was summarized by Lieutenant COM satellite was launched in 1978 and the General James Cassity, Joint Staff Directorate last in 1989. The system was utilized by naval for C3 (command, control, and communica- aircraft, ships, submarines, and ground sta- tions) Systems, who said, “From day one, tions. In addition, it supported communica- satellite communications have been our tions between the National Command bread and butter. From first deployment Authority and high-priority users, such as through today, military and commercial the White House Communications Agency. satellite communications systems have been In an effort to increase the use of leased vital in providing essential command and commercial satellites, Congress directed that control.... In 90 days, we established more the follow-on system for FLTSATCOM be military communications connectivity to the leased. The LEASAT program primarily Persian Gulf than we have in Europe after 40 served the Navy, Air Force, and mobile years.” The essential role played by satellites ground forces, using FLTSATCOM terminals in that conflict was noted by military plan- and communications channels very similar ners around the world. to FLTSATCOM. The first LEASAT was Present U.S. MILSATCOM architecture launched in 1984 and the last in 1990. By has three basic systems: the Fleet Satellite 1999, all of the FLTSATCOM satellites had Communications system (FLTSATCOM); the been removed from service. Defense Satellite Communications System FLTSATCOM and LEASAT satellite sys- (DSCS); and Milstar. The satellites of each tems were both replaced by UHF Follow- system operate in the geosynchronous orbit On (UHF F/O) satellites. The Navy’s (22,300 miles high), and each system uses requirements for additional UHF capacity specific frequency ranges. FLTSATCOM had increased dramatically after the FLT-

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SATCOM system was initiated. The UHF sage System, Ground Mobile Forces, the F/O constellation of satellites was imple- Diplomatic Telecommunications Service, mented to meet the increased demand for and several allied nations. THE DSCS more capacity. The first successful launch was evolved through three phases: DSCSI, or the in 1993 and the last in 1999. Two UHF F/O Initial Defense Satellite Communications satellites are located at each of the FLTSAT- System (IDSCS), began in 1967; DSCSII COM locations. The new satellites more than began in 1971 with the launch of two satel- double the capacity of the system. All of the lites; and DSCSIII began in 1982 when its UHF F/O satellites are electromagnetic pulse first satellite was launched. The five DSCSIII protected. The satellites carry transponders satellites allow most earth terminals to access for use by the Milstar ground terminals and two satellites. The Ground Mobile Forces the Global Broadcast Service (GBS). The (GMF) operate on a subnetwork using the enhanced capability of the satellites has DSCS satellites. The GMF subnetwork allowed a reduction in the size of terminals; requires use of a gateway terminal, as it is for example, the Army’s Enhanced Manpack not compatible with the DSCS network’s UHF terminal can be carried, set up, and used strategic terminal. by individual soldiers to communicate using The Milstar Satellite Communications the UHF F/O satellites. System is the most advanced satellite com- The GBS utilizes technology from com- munications system. It provides secure, jam- mercial television to broadcast large streams resistant, worldwide communications to of data to numerous small antennas. The sys- meet joint service requirements. The Milstar tem broadcasts only one way and resembles system consists of five satellites in geosyn- the system used for home satellite television chronous orbits, the first of which was reception. The need for the GBS system grew launched 7 February 1994. Milstar terminals out of the Gulf War when service-operated allow a user to transmit encrypted voice, and commercial leased communication chan- data, teletype, or facsimile communications. nels were overloaded and essential informa- The satellite functions as a switchboard by tion had to be moved to fighting units by routing traffic from terminal to terminal any- airlift assets. Since the GBS can transmit to where on earth. The system has reduced small, phased array antennas on mobile plat- requirements for ground-controlled switch- forms, data can be transmitted to forces while ing because the satellite processes the com- they are in motion. Commercial off-the-shelf munications signal and can link with other and government off-the-shelf technology was satellites in the constellation through cross- used to quickly acquire and field the GBS links. One of the driving aims behind the capability. Milstar program is to provide interoperable The Defense Satellite Communications communications between Army, Navy, and System (DSCS) provides secure voice, tele- Air Force Milstar users. type, television, facsimile, and digital data The capability of the Milstar system to services. The primary users of the DSCS are operate under adverse conditions, such as the Global Command and Control System, jamming and nuclear attack, are achieved White House Communications Agency, by frequency hopping, extensive on-board Defense Information Systems Network, processing, and crosslinks. The flexibility of Defense Switched Network, Defense Mes- the Milstar system is improved by multiple

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 394 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Scott Air Force Base, Illinois uplink and downlink channels operating at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois different rates; multiple uplink and down- link beams; and routing of individual signals For many decades the headquarters of U.S. between uplinks, downlinks, and crosslinks. Air Force communications activities (under Tommy R. Young II varied titles), Scott Air Force Base traces its See also Defense Message System (DMS); background to World War I. Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP); Global Some 624 acres of land in Belleville, Illi- Command and Control System (GCCS); Gulf nois, about 20 miles east of St. Louis, were War (1990–1991); Spectrum Frequencies; leased to the U.S. government in mid-June White House Communications Agency 1917, two months after the country’s entry (WHCA) into World War I. Two thousand workers and a $10-million appropriation converted Sources Butricia, Andrew J., ed. 1997. Beyond the the former farmland into an Army airfield Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communica- with sixty buildings and a railway connec- tion. NASA History Series SP-4217. tion to existing lines. A month later the field Washington, DC: Government Printing was named after Corporal Frank Scott, the Office. first enlisted man killed in an air crash (in Cassity, James. 1991. “Operation Desert Storm—The J-6 Perspective.” AFCEA News College Park, Maryland, five years earlier). February: 2. The training of pilots began at Scott Field Chun, Clayton K. S. 2006. Defending Space: U.S. in September 1917, much of it in the familiar Anti-Satellite Warfare and Space Weaponry. Curtiss JN-3D “Jennies.” By 1918, two mod- Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ified Jennies had been constructed to serve as Elfers, Glen, and Stephen B. Miller. 2001. air ambulances for pilots hurt in accidents. “Future U.S. Military Satellite Communica- tion Systems.” [Online article; retrieved Scott’s first public air show was held in mid- December 2006.] www.aero.org/ August 1918. After some postwar confusion publications/crosslink/winter2002/ and worry about the future, the War Depart- 08.html. ment in 1919 purchased the land on which Federici, Gary. “From the Sea to the Stars: A the airfield operated. History of U.S. Navy Space and Space- Related Activities.” [Online information; In 1920 Scott became the Army’s only retrieved December 2006.] http://www inland airship facility for experiments with .history.navy.mil/books/space/index.htm. military uses of blimps and balloons. This Martin, Donald H. 2001. “A History of U.S. role lasted until 1937, when Scott again Military Satellite Communication Systems.” became an airplane base. Just a year later, [Online article; retrieved December 2006.] Scott became home for the General Head- www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/winter 2002/01.html. quarters of the Air Force, leading to demoli- National Aeronautics and Space Administra- tion of most existing buildings (some of them tion. “DSCS (Defense Satellite Communica- two decades old) and construction of more tions System).” [Online information; permanent administration, housing, and retrieved December 2006.] http://msl.jpl hangar buildings, more than seventy in all. .nasa.gov/Programs/dscs.html. RussianSpaceWeb.com. 2006. “Spacecraft: The field was considerably expanded during Military.” [Online information; retrieved World War II (it served as a major induction December 2006.] http://www.russian center for draftees) and again in the 1950s spaceweb.com/spacecraft_military.html. when several housing areas were added.

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In 1941, Scott Field was designated as the fire up a feeble, poorly reflected, and unfo- communications training center for the cused beam of light, which, following the Army Air Force, beginning nearly five noise of the escaping ship, managed to illu- decades of Scott’s identification with Air minate it enough to permit discovery and Force communications operations. In Janu- engagement. ary 1958, Scott Air Force Base became for Searchlight technology was simple. The twelve years the headquarters of the Air searchlight was similar to lights used to illu- Force Communications System, later Com- minate the outside of theaters with what mand. Though the headquarters shifted for was, logically enough, called “limelight.” It seven years to Richards-Gebair Air Force was produced by playing an oxy-hydrogen Base, Missouri, the function returned to Scott flame on a candle of calcium oxide in front of in November 1977 and has remained since. a crude, spherical, polished metal mirror, In the early twenty-first century, Scott Air which reflected only about half the light gen- Force Base was also the headquarters of the erated. Soon, a more efficient and brighter U.S. Transportation Command, the Air arc light was developed for use in light- Mobility Command, and the Defense Infor- houses. mation Technology Contracting Organiza- During the siege of Paris (1870–1871), an tion, as well as nearly thirty other tenant improved arc light was developed as a organizations. searchlight. By 1876, some lights featured a Christopher H. Sterling silvered glass reflector, which was the fore- See also Air Force Communications Agency runner of modern searchlight mirrors. In the (AFCA, 1991–2006); Air Force Communica- winter of 1881–1882, the Imperial Austrian tions Service (AFCS,) Air Force Communica- Navy won a naval battle in the Bay of Cat- tions Command (AFCC) (1961–1991) taro by combining use of searchlights with machine guns. An English fleet used search- Sources lights in 1882 to prevent Egyptians from Miller, Linda G., and Cora J. Holt. 1989. Air Force Communications Command Chronology, erecting artillery batteries at Alexandria. 1938–1988. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Later, French and British forces landed Communications Command. troops under searchlights. By 1886 British Snyder, Thomas S., gen. ed. 1991. Air Force naval maneuvers at Milford Haven demon- Communications Command: 1938–1991—An strated that squadron searchlights could Illustrated History. 3rd ed. Scott Air Force blind and confuse gunners on shore and Base, IL: Air Force Communications Command Office of History. reduce their firing effectiveness. In fall 1903, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet con- ducted joint maneuvers with the Army at Searchlights/Signal Blinkers the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound. As the fleet neared Fort Michie, all its search- The first known naval searchlight was lights were concentrated suddenly on the employed aboard a Union warship blockad- fort upon a signal from the flagship. The fort ing a Southern port during the American was lit so plainly that movement of individ- Civil War (1861–1865). In the very dark night ual soldiers could be readily seen, and the the Confederate ship tried to break through fleet reached the sound without a shot fired the blockade. One Union ship managed to from the fort’s main batteries. Officers in the

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Searchlights became important means of signaling and operations in the late nineteenth century as improved electric technology allowed the use of bright, focused beams. Here, the cruiser USS Philadelphia is playing her searchlights on USS Alarm (left) and USS Vesuvius in this 1892 watercolor by Fred S. Cozzens. (U.S. Naval Historical Center) fort reported they were so blinded by the con- (1941). During the Battle of Guadalcanal centrated light that they could see nothing. (1942), a U.S. destroyer lit up a Japanese By 1907, the value of searchlights was cruiser just as the cruiser lit the destroyer, widely recognized. One new use was to illu- which fired five torpedoes, one scoring a hit. minate attacks by fast torpedo boats by The Navy later achieved some success in blinding firing crews on targeted ships. blinding kamikaze pilots attempting night Other uses were to detect enemy ships at attacks. greater distances, as a signaling device over The advent of radar soon confined search- considerable distance, and to illuminate light use at sea largely to use as signal where landing parties were to go ashore. blinkers. There were 24-inch and 12-inch Searchlights also were most helpful in locat- searchlights, as well as a smaller, handheld ing and signaling the presence of the enemy Aldis signal light, which was very effective during the Battle of Jutland (1916), where in sending messages to airplanes. While lim- German searchlights appeared to be techni- ited largely to operator speed, blinkers pro- cally superior to those used by the British. vided an invaluable, reliable, and often During the early days of World War II, secure means for close-range message traffic searchlights again played a valuable role. within fleets and convoys during both day The Royal Navy had remarkable success and night. While technological advances using searchlights in the Battle of Matapan continue, the blinker light, like its daytime

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partners, the flaghoist and the two-flag hand graph” is also used as a verb, while “sema- semaphore, still keeps sailors and comman- phore” is normally a noun. ders well informed. This entry focuses on the use of mechani- David L. Woods cal systems for signaling over distances on See also Aldis Lamp; Jutland, Battle of (1916); land. Wooden shutters or arms (which could Lights and Beacons; Night Signals be moved to arrange different prearranged patterns to designate letters, numbers, or Sources even words or phrases) were mounted on Boghosian, Ernest. 1956. “History of Naval one or more wooden or metal poles or struc- Searchlights.” Journal of the American Society tures. These mountings, in turn, were usu- of Naval Engineers 69 (August): 3. Bureau of Steam Engineering. 1918. “Signaling ally found on the tops of buildings, church Apparatus.” In Searchlights and Signal Lights. steeples, old fortifications, or specially built Washington, DC: U.S. Navy Bureau of Steam towers of either wood or stone. Prior to the Engineering. development in the mid-1800s of the electric telegraph, they were the most sophisticated and rapid means of communicating informa- Semaphore (Mechanical tion over considerable distance. But they Telegraphs) were also expensive to build (signaling tow- ers or stations had to be within the line of Two common words in much early signal- sight of two other such stations, typically ing—”telegraph” and “semaphore”—have not more than 20 miles or less apart) and to often been misused. The Greek words teele, operate (one or more trained operators at meaning “at a distance,” and grapho, mean- each site who knew the code and how to ing “to write,” combine logically to form the operate the sometimes complex devices), term “telegraph.” Likewise, the Greek seema, and were largely limited to daytime opera- “a sign,” and phero, “to bear, or to carry,” tion in clear weather conditions (when oper- form the highly popular signal term “sema- ators in one tower could see others). The phore.” The term “telegraph” has described high cost of their construction and operation many ancient signal systems, and several all limited semaphore telegraph application to but forgotten large networks of mechanical government and military entities. French- telegraphs, as well as various means of elec- man Claude Chappe was first to devise a tric telegraphy. While all these systems had workable optical semaphore or telegraph the same purpose (rapid communication that gained widespread practical applica- over a distance), each was physically differ- tion. With four brothers, he transmitted suc- ent. Likewise, while “semaphore” was often cessfully from Paris to Bulon in March 1791. used as a synonym for the mechanical tele- He used a 30-foot post, with a movable, 14- graph, it gained lasting popularity as a foot regulator at the top. There were also descriptor for one-man, two-flag signal sys- two shorter, movable indicators. This system tems, as well as a large number of multi- did not spell, but in various positions indi- shaped, fixed, and partially mobile signal cated a word, phrase, or number of a word systems employed from sea to shore, aboard or phrase. Initial success of the line from ship, or on land for military use—and which Paris to Lille led to rapid expansion after still exist in railroad applications. “Tele- 1795, and especially after Napoleon took

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power, as Strasbourg, Brussels, Boulogne, between 1796 and 1816. Plymouth was added Amsterdam, Milan, and Mantua were added. in 1806 and Yarmouth in 1808. Others in Telegraph lines reached hundreds of miles Britain who tried to adapt similar systems for north, south, east, and west from Paris by mobile land use were Reverend John Gamble 1815. By 1844, and the arrival of the electric (whose very effective system was rebuffed by telegraph, 534 mechanical telegraph stations the Admiralty) and Lieutenant Colonel John connected twenty-nine of Europe’s largest Macdonald. cities. Meanwhile, Irishman Richard Edge- A semaphore line following a different worth was working on a military “tello- track of closer stations and using a sema- graph,” as was a Swede, Abraham Edelcrantz, phoric system devised by Sir Home Riggs who erected ten large tabletop devices that Popham and Sir Charles Pasley, was devel- could be moved either to follow military oped from the Admiralty in London to the forces or in case it was necessary to hide them. Royal Navy base at Portsmouth from 1822 to As reduced by Lord George Murray to only 1847, along with an uncompleted branch to six tabletops, the British Admiralty established Plymouth from 1825 to 1831. Later, Popham shutter telegraph lines (with stations from 3 to simplified his land telegraph to something 10 miles apart) from London to Portsmouth akin to modern railroad semaphores. His

This semaphore signaling device, aboard the battleship USS Utah around 1915, could send ship-to-ship signals across limited distances to supplement flag or radio signals. The horizontal arms could move to represent different letters. (Library of Congress)

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three movable pieces could send numbers Stevenage, UK: Institution of Electrical and letters. A portable land system much Engineers. like Popham’s remained in use within the Chappe, Ignace V. J. 1840. Histoire de la Telegra- phie. AuMans, France: Ch. Richelet. U.S. Army through 1916, at which time a Holmes, T. W. 1983. The Semaphore: The Story of more portable one-man, two-flag semaphore the Admiralty-to-Portsmouth Shutter Telegraph system took over. and Semaphore Lines, 1796 to 1847. Ilfracombe, Geoffrey Wilson’s The Old Telegraphs sum- UK: Arthur H. Stockwell. marizes the near worldwide glut of similar Mallinson, Howard. 2005. Send It by Semaphore: The Old Telegraphs During the Wars with semaphore, mechanical, and optical tele- France. Ramsbury, UK: Crowood Press. graphic systems during these decades. In Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. The Old Telegraphs. addition to the three best-known systems Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. and the several pioneers already mentioned, Woods, David L. 1965. “Mechanical Telegraphs and Semaphores.” In A History of Tactical he comments on more than a half-dozen oth- Communication Techniques, 13–29. Orlando, ers in the British Isles; a coastal semaphore in FL: Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno France in addition to the Chappe system, Press, 1974). which was extended to Italy, Switzerland, Woods, David L., ed. 1980. Signaling and and the Netherlands; two each in Germany Communicating at Sea. 2 vols. New York: Arno Press. and Sweden; one each in Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal, and South Africa; and sev- eral systems in Russia. Semi-Automatic Ground Simple semaphore systems found several Environment (SAGE) decades of use aboard ship, known as mast- head semaphores. U.S. Navy Admiral By 1948 the Soviets were developing nuclear Bradley Fiske devised such a system as a weapons and the aircraft to drop them on junior officer. Various systems of cones, American cities. Effectively countering an air- forms, shapes, and drums were devised by borne attack when the attackers could many for use aboard merchant ships and in approach from a wide variety of directions the navies of at least Britain, the United over an area covering thousands of miles was States, Prussia, and Austria. By 1920, these seen as a critical problem. The solution was somewhat complex concepts of optical sig- the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment naling by shape had been largely superseded (SAGE), a network of twenty-three computer- by other methods, including a signalman ized command-and-control centers located in with two small, portable semaphore flags— the United States and Canada that operated which on occasion continues even today. from 1959 until 1983. Telephonically con- David L. Woods nected computers at these centers allowed the See also Chappe, Claude (1763–1805); North American Air Defense Command Edelcrantz, Abraham (1754–1821); Fiske, (NORAD) to detect approaching Soviet air- Bradley A. (1854–1942); Flags; Human craft. Controllers could then direct and coor- Signaling; Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820); dinate response by interceptor aircraft or United Kingdom: Royal Navy air-to-ground missiles. Until its replacement, Sources SAGE formed a large part of the total NORAD Burns, Russell W. 2004. “Semaphore air defense effort in the 1960s and 1970s. Signalling.” In Communications: An Interna- Work on SAGE began in the late 1940s. tional History of the Formative Years, 29–55. The first part of the problem, the short range

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of radar stations, was mitigated by installing degree of reliability and provided large many of them to cover potential paths of amounts of information processed quickly approach. Second, the amount of data from and in such a way as to allow intelligent these stations could not be processed manu- decisions to be made about air defense. It ally. By this time, though, a computer existed, also provided technologies that would form the Whirlwind, developed at the Massachu- the basis for civilian air traffic control. On the setts Institute of Technology. Whirl wind, it most immediate basis, SAGE apparently suc- was hoped, could process this data in time ceeded as a deterrent by its very presence. for decisions to be made. A prototype system There were no attempts to attack the United connecting the Whirlwind to radar stations States by Soviet bombers, and some of the was developed that proved the concept well credit must be given to the system. It has, enough to encourage developers. Through however, been questioned as to whether it the early to mid-1950s, SAGE was devel- would have worked in a real attack: At least oped. In 1959, the first SAGE Center was once an Air Force exercise penetrated the installed, and four years later, the entire sys- defenses. tem was operating. Robert Stacy Each site contained two computers, desig- See also Airplanes; Bell Telephone Laboratories nated as Whirlwind II and later as AN/ FSQ- (BTL); Computer; Telephone 7, one as primary and the other on a “hot standby” basis. As was typical of the time, Sources Everett, R. R., et al. 1958. SAGE, A Data Process- these computers were huge: each weighed ing System for Air Defense. Bedford, MA: about 275 tons with approximately 50,000 MITRE. vacuum tubes. Data were presented to the Everett, Robert R., ed. 1983. “Special Issue: users on a cathode ray tube in real time so SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environ- that decisions were being made based on ment).” Annals of the History of Computing 5: 4. the nearly instantaneous transfer of data Gray, Colin S. 1972. Canada and NORAD: A over phone lines using modems. Study in Strategy. Toronto: Canadian Institute Had the Soviets attacked, SAGE would of National Affairs. have picked up their aircraft on a radar. Infor- Radomes, Inc. “SAGE Documents.” [Online mation indicating the aircraft’s location, information; retrieved December 2006.] height, and flight path would have been con- http://www.radomes.org/museum/ sagedocs.html. veyed to a SAGE Center, which would con- Redmond, Kent C. 2000. From Whirlwind to vey information to both NORAD command MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air and to air defense units. Through the ensuing Defense Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT battle, all information would pass through Press. the centers at the same time that further radar reports, if there were subsequent attacks, would be tracked and processed as well. Signal Book SAGE was a huge design, manufacturing, implementation, and operations effort. It A signal book is typically issued by an successfully combined existing technologies agency—usually, though not always, a as well as new ones. It operated with a high Navy—to include all the means of signaling

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and their meanings. It differs from a code- Sources book in that the signals are not intended to Department of the Army. 1916. U.S. Army Signal be secret, merely efficient. There have been Book. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. many kinds of signal books. In the earliest U.K. Royal Navy. n.d. HMS Manual of Instruc- days of flaghoist usage, most flag signal tion of Army Signalling. London: His codes were issued by flag (commanding) Majesty’s Stationery Office. officers to a squadron or larger body of ships U.K. Royal Navy. 1918. Handbook of Signalling. under his command, and each admiral had London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office. U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. 1931. Interna- his own. The term “signal book” commonly tional Code of Signals, American Edition— applies to this usage. At the same time, how- Visual. Washington, DC: Government ever, an entire fleet or navy might also issue Printing Office. a signal book that contained more signals and hundreds of written meanings for vari- ous combinations of flags. The term “signal Signal Rockets book” was common, but “book of signals” was also used. As the merchant class began Rockets carrying colored explosive signals to use extensive signaling (at first by sema- (much like modern fireworks) allow simple phore, later by telegraphy), it too developed messages to be sent for considerable distances signal books, usually referred to and pub- as the rocket’s achieved altitude can often be lished as International Code of Signals vol- seen for miles, depending on terrain. umes. These were typically issued by each Signal rockets may have been used in nation. As ciphering came into use to pre- China in ancient times, a spin-off of their vent enemy reception of signals, books of development of both gunpowder and crude code (codebooks) began to appear. Unlike rockets. Sir William Congreve (1670–1729) signal books, these had little to do with developed a rocket light ball that shot into signals and nothing to do with signal flags. the air and slowly descended on a small They continued in use through World War II, parachute, allowing a light to be seen for and designated officers got out the codebook several minutes. Marine rockets were devel- to decode messages usually sent by wireless oped by the early eighteenth century. Per- in the Navy or by line on land. Codebooks haps the best example of marine signal could be made up of numbers, rocket use occurred in April 1912 when the of letters, or might feature both. Each foundering Titanic shot off numerous emer- number or lettered group meant a given gency rockets to try to attract the attention of word—which the codebook re vealed. Ulti- a nearby vessel—to no avail. mately, there were codes on top of these Signal rockets were one mode of commu- codes to take every fifth word for true mean- nication included in an 1840 U.S. Army ord- ing, or various patterns of word substitution nance board manual. A signal rocket that were preplanned by various correspon- announced the start of the American Civil dents. War (1861) in Charleston Harbor. Signal corps David L. Woods and Christopher H. Sterling on both sides used chronosemic, or timed, See also Code, Codebook; Code Breaking; Flag- rocket signals. Use of color signals sent at hoist; International Code of Signals (ICS) predetermined intervals could signal fairly

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complex messages. The modern Very pistol http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/ is a descendent of such rocket signals. schermuly/. World War I saw extensive use of signal Woods, David L. 1965. “Pyrotechnic Signals.” In A History of Tactical Communication rocket communications. The Germans and Techniques, chap. 6. Orlando, FL: French both utilized searchlight shells early Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno in the war. Tracer shells were also used early Press, 1974). on, their (usually) red path communicating to the ground artillery how close their firing was getting to the target. After 1917 signal Signal Security Agency (SSA, rockets came into more general use. Some 1943–1949) made use of colors to communicate Morse code, with red indicating a dot and white or The Signal Security Agency (SSA) was a new green a dash. Smoke rockets were often used name introduced in 1943 for the U.S. Army during the day when colors could not be Signal Corps’ Signal Intelligence Service easily discerned. Schermuly line-throwing (SIS), which had been organized in 1930. SIS rockets were used in World War I to shoot remained a minor bureau until the late 1930s. telephone lines along or across trench lines The opening of World War II brought a rapid rather than risking men to do the same job. increase in staff, and in 1942 its operations Rocket signals featured many drawbacks. were moved to Arlington Hall, a former Experience in World War II suggested that women’s college near Washington DC. The simple signals were usually the most suc- following year SIS, already renamed the Sig- cessful, whether communicated by color or nal Intelligence Division, was again renamed the pattern of rocket explosion—or both. The the Signal Security Division, the Signal Secu- meanings of various signals could vary as rity Service, and finally the Signal Security they were often peculiar to individual com- Agency. mands. As noted in many conflicts, visibility The old SIS working arrangements in - of rocket signals was apt to be overrated by volved State Department–style country inexperienced personnel. They could not be desks (staff arranged by country). SSA successfully used in wooded country. Some- adopted a new workflow pattern based on times when clouds are low, rockets throw the type of task being executed, whether sta- out their signals above the clouds, making tistical analysis, deciphering, or code recon- them invisible to the ground. In mountain- struction. In 1943, using this new system, ous areas rockets may well not attract the Arlington Hall was intercepting more than attention of the observing party unless the 380,000 messages per month, about half of observers have a comparatively unob- them Japanese military traffic. structed view. Cooperation with Britain’s Government Christopher H. Sterling Code & Cipher School (GC&CS) was a key element in SSA’s operations. In March 1944, See also Artillery/Gunfire; Lights and Beacons; arrangements were made for more compre- Night Signals hensive distribution of intelligence informa- Sources tion among the Allies. This agreement Cyberheritage. “Schermuly and His Rockets.” followed a 1942 SIS-Canadian arrangement [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] under which Ottawa passed intercepts of

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Vichy French diplomatic traffic to Washing- elements, and operators were able to attack ton. Another agreement, reached in May multiple encryption permutations using the 1943, ratified United States–United Kingdom machine. working-level arrangements in place since By summer 1945 SSA had eleven intercept April 1942 that allocated general responsibil- stations, located at Vint Hill Farms, Virginia; ity for global monitoring of enemy military Two Rock Ranch, California; Indian Creek communications. Under these agreements, Station, Florida; Asmara, Eritrea; Fort SIS/SSA focused on Japan’s traffic while Shafter, Oahu, Hawaii; Amchitka in the GC&CS worked chiefly on German codes. Aleutian Islands; Fairbanks, Alaska; New The 1944 agreement, known as the “BRUSA” Delhi, India; the island of Guam; Tarzana, (or sometimes “UKUSA”) agreement, California; and Bellmore, New York. The sta- extended the cooperation to involve other tions operated twenty-four hours daily, mon- Allied powers and covered the exchange of itoring some 300 foreign transmitters. Using raw radio intercepts, cryptanalysis tech- these and intercepts and material shared by niques, deciphering solutions, and other the Allies, SSA code breakers routinely technical data. Direction of these cooperative worked on about 350 different cryptosys- efforts rested with SSA. Soon both Australian tems deployed in the traffic of at least sixty intercepts of Japan’s military traffic, moni- different governments or political entities. tored in Brisbane and Darwin, and British The Allies’ wartime signals intelligence monitoring material based on German trans- (SIGINT)–sharing agreements continued missions were being exchanged through SSA into the postwar era, and eventually covered communications facilities. open radio broadcasts as well as encrypted Beginning in early 1943, SIS/SSA code transmissions. SSA remained the principal breakers prioritized work on Japan’s mili- U.S. agency involved in monitoring efforts, tary, diplomatic, and administrative traffic in although the Navy, the newly organized U.S. the Far East. The Purple cipher machine, Air Force, and the Office of Strategic Services used by Japan’s diplomats, had been largely each fielded smaller monitoring and crypt- penetrated in 1940, but Japan’s military traf- analysis operations. fic remained a major problem. By the end of The reorganization of American intelli- 1943, breakthroughs were achieved in gence operations in the late 1940s soon decoding Imperial Japanese Army messages, engulfed SSA. In 1949 it was amalgamated and in 1944 SSA Purple experts were trans- into the Armed Forces Security Agency ferred to work on military codes. (AFSA), along with Navy and Air Force SSA led America’s efforts to accelerate the SIGINT entities, and placed under the U.S. decryption of intercepted traffic and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1952, AFSA was search for decryption solutions. While placed under civilian control of the U.S. sec- Britain’s GC&CS developed the Colossus retary of defense, renamed the National computer to sort German military messages Security Agency, and moved to Fort Meade, encrypted by the “fish” codes, SSA Maryland. employed a sophisticated microfilm-based Laura M. Calkins machine, the 5202. By comparing strips of See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Enigma; microfilmed message traffic, 5202 reported Fort Meade, Maryland; Government Code & coincident appearances of coded message Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Magic;

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National Security Agency (NSA); Office of try intelligence (TELINT). Information col- Strategic Services (OSS); Rowlett, Frank B. lected from nonimaging radars (RADINT) is (1908–1998); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); a subset of MASINT. Turing, Alan Mathison (1912–1954); Ultra; World War II In the United States, each of these intelli- gence streams of information is the responsi- Sources bility of different federal agencies: SIGINT is Aldrich, Richard J. 2000. Intelligence and the War the province of the National Security Agency Against Japan: Britain, America, and the Politics (NSA); HUMINT is a shared responsibility of of Secret Service. Cambridge: Cambridge the Central Intelligence Agency and the University Press. Alvarez, David, ed. 1999. Allied and Axis Signals Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); IMINT is Intelligence in World War II. London: Frank the responsibility of the National Geospatial- Cass. Intelligence Agency; and MASINT is con- Alvarez, David. 2000. Secret Messages: Codebreak- ducted by DIA. ing and American Diplomacy, No matter what source is used, SIGINT 1930–1945. Lawrence: University of Kansas poses a basic problem for military planners: Press. Haufler, Hauvie. 2003. Codebreakers’ Victory: How By its very nature, the information is perish- the Allied Cryptographers Won World War II. able (it is valuable for a short time), yet too New York: New American Library. direct a response to SIGINT information can Smith, Michael. 2000. The Emperor’s Codes: The inadvertently give away the fact that enemy Breaking of Japan’s Secret Ciphers. codes are being read. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books. Origins The collection of COMINT has been a com- Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) mon practice as long as people have commu- nicated with each other. One of the most Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is one of four famous efforts was the Geheim Kabinets- important sources of intelligence informa- Kanzlei in Vienna, Austria. This “Viennese tion. The oldest and most traditional of the Black Chamber” of the 1700s intercepted four is human intelligence (now dubbed mail and then supplied intelligence to the HUMINT), and the others include imaging emperor and also sold information to other intelligence (IMINT) and measurement and governments. Similar organizations were signatures intelligence (MASINT). SIGINT established by other governments to gather is composed of two different categories of information that would further their national intelligence collection: communications in- objectives. telligence (COMINT), or the practice of col- Once communications moved from the lection and analysis of communications (of written word to the telegraph and subse- whatever type and source) from foreign quently the telephone and radio, the prob- countries, and—since about World War II— lems associated with collecting intelligence electronic intelligence (ELINT), the collection increased. Telegraph and telephone lines of information from electromagnetic signals could be intercepted, but only if they crossed other than communications signals. This the territory of the nation intercepting the includes foreign instrumentation signals transmissions, where wires could be tapped. intelligence (FISINT) and its subset, teleme- Introduction of radio communications meant

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that listening stations located elsewhere much more complex. The major achievement could monitor the signals being sent to and of the Army’s SIS in the immediate from military forces, government offices, and pre–World War II period was the breaking of foreign embassies. the Japanese diplomatic (Purple) codes. Pol- During World War I (1914–1918), all of the ish, British, and eventually American SIG- combatant nations established organizations INT was an important factor in the Allied to gather intelligence from the signals trans- victory in 1945. mitted by their enemies. Listening, analyz- In England, the primary task of the Gov- ing, and sometimes jamming enemy radio ernment Code and Cipher School (GC&CS), signals became a basic part of military oper- located by late 1939 at Bletchley Park, was to ations. Lack of proper signals procedures break German machine-generated ciphers. cost the Russians the Battle of Tannenberg The two major, and most famous, successes (1914) when Germany read Russia’s military were the breaking of the Enigma and more orders. Closely contested trench warfare led complex Lorenz ciphers. Messages sent in to SIGINT results by simple induction. Large both ciphers were encrypted using ex- organizations were necessary to effectively tremely sophisticated machines. The Ger- collect, decipher, analyze, and distribute the mans believed that the Enigma messages information collected. Beginning in June were unbreakable, and more than 200 vari- 1917, the U.S. War Department’s Military ants were identified, not all of which were Intelligence Division (MI-8), directed by Her- broken. This process of interception, decryp- bert O. Yardley, conducted cryptographic tion, and analysis was dubbed Ultra. operations. Two electromechanical inventions aided Following the war, MI-8 became the the breaking of numerous German codes. Cipher Bureau and was jointly funded by the Alan Turing further developed a Polish War Department and the State Department. machine called the Bomba, which could sim- In 1929, the organization lost much of its ulate the actions of Enigma machines and funding when Secretary of State Henry L. provided a high-speed check of all potential Stimson famously pronounced that “Gen- settings. Once the settings were determined, tlemen do not read each other’s mail.” Yard- a message could be decrypted. The Lorenz ley’s organization was closed, and on 24 codes were broken by early 1942, but it took April 1930, the Army established its Signals weeks to work out the proper settings to Intelligence Service (SIS). The U.S. Navy’s decrypt each message. In March 1943, design World War I cryptologic bureau had closed work began on a machine that would reduce in 1918, and beginning in 1924, Navy the time required to break “fish” messages. COMINT activities were carried out by OP- The Colossus, a pioneering computer, was 20-G, which soon turned its attention to operational at Bletchley Park by January 1944 breaking Japanese naval codes. and allowed decryption of Lorenz messages in hours rather than weeks. In May 1943 a World War II formal agreement to share Ultra information The years leading up to World War II (1939– with the United States was signed. The 1945) marked the inception of electro- British observed one essential element of any mechanical machine-generated codes and successful SIGINT program by maintaining ciphers, making the job of code breaking the secret that they had broken the German

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codes. Indeed, the breaking of the German that the coverage was less than adequate. ciphers remained a secret until 1974, and Attempts were made to overfly the territory, details of the effort were still being revealed but such flights were dangerous, increased in the 1990s. international tension, and were thus rare. One successful factor involved in safe- The development of satellites offered the guarding communications was the use of opportunity to monitor communications Navajo “code talkers” by the U.S. Marines without the dangers associated with over- during World War II. Because Navajo is an flights. NSA is responsible for the collection extremely complex unwritten language and and analysis of information collected by a was spoken only on the Navajo lands of the system of satellites. The first constellation U.S. Southwest, no Japanese knew the lan- of American SIGINT satellites, known as guage (the Japanese chief of intelligence Rhyolite, consisted of three or four satellites reported after the war that Japan was unable in geostationary orbit, launched in the early to break the Marine “code”). Another factor 1970s. The second group, launched in the was that Allied electric cipher machines were late 1970s, was designated Chalet or Vortex. not broken by the Axis powers. American The third generation, known as Magnum, reading of Japan’s army, navy, and diplo- was launched in the late 1980s. matic codes was dubbed Magic. Army and Each series of satellites incorporated the Navy code breakers worked (and sometimes most recent advances in technology to collect even cooperated) in the effort, and results more and more information. One of the most were shared with the British under the agree- notable improvements was in the size of the ment between the two nations. antennas, which increased with each gener- ation. The larger the antenna, the more low- Cold War powered transmission can be intercepted The United States formed the Armed Forces and the transmitter more accurately located. Security Agency (AFSA) in 1949. The new Development of computers with increased organization was responsible for conducting speed, capacity, and capabilities added to the communications intelligence and communi- ability to analyze SIGINT interceptions. At cations security activities within the military. the same time, the computers also increased Because it lacked a central agency for cryp- the ability of those charged with developing tologic activities, however, AFSA was unable codes to protect information. NSA operated to perform its mission effectively. Conse- one of the first Cray supercomputers to man- quently, the military as well as nonmilitary age and analyze the vast amount of informa- cryptologic activities became a part of NSA, tion collected from a wide variety of SIGINT established in November 1952. The British sources. Likewise, the British GCHQ uses continued their GC&CS and later renamed it similar computer resources consisting of the the Government Communications Head- latest Cray machines and high-end Sun quarters (GCHQ). workstations. The beginning of the Cold War shifted the One part of the SIGINT process that has not focus of the SIGINT activities of the Western changed is the role of the human analyst. nations. Large listening posts were estab- Interpretation of the information captured by lished around the border of the Soviet Union SIGINT efforts remains labor intensive. Per- and its allies, but the vast distances meant haps 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park

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during World War II. In 1997, it was reported London: Government Communications that just one NSA monitoring station (at Men- Headquarters. with Hill in Yorkshire) employed more than Kahn, David. 1996. The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication 1,200 civilian and military personnel. It has from Ancient Times to the Internet. 2nd ed. been rumored that NSA employs more math- New York: Scribner’s. ematicians than any other employer in the Pincock, Stephen. 2006. Codebreakers: The History world. Analysis of SIGINT is usually done in of Codes & Ciphers. New York: Walker & Co. a secure location in order to protect the exper- Richelson, J. 1985. The U.S. Intelligence Community. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. tise and knowledge of the analysts from Singh, Simon. 1999. The Code Book: The Science of falling into enemy hands. Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum In addition to breaking and analyzing SIG- Cryptography. New York: Doubleday. INT, both NSA and GCHQ develop the ciphers and other items necessary to protect the communications of their respective Signals Research and Development governments. Codes and ciphers must be Establishment (SRDE) changed or upgraded regularly—any coun- try has to operate under the assumption that The British Signals Research and Develop- other nations are using computers to break ment Establishment (SRDE) was for many into its communications. decades the primary research center for the Tommy R. Young II Royal Corps of Signals. See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; SRDE antecedents date to 1903, when the Chicksands; Code Breaking; Code Talkers; army chose two men to develop telegraphy Driscoll, Agnes Meyer (1889–1971); Electric and posted them to the School of Military Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, “SIGABA”); Engineering at Chatham, in Kent. Later that Enigma; Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); German “Fish” Codes; Germany: Naval year, the work and equipment were trans- Intelligence (B-Dienst); Government Code & ferred to a telegraph battalion at Aldershot. Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); High- A reorganization of the Royal Engineers Frequency Direction Finding (HF DF); Telegraphs followed in June 1905, when Magic; Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald (1881– wireless telegraph companies were formed. 1971); National Reconnaissance Office (NRO); National Security Agency (NSA); In 1911, the unit was renamed the Experi- Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC; mental Wireless Telegraphy Section Royal Op-20-G; Polish Code Breaking; Room 40; Engineers. Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); Safford, In August 1914, many of the officers of Laurance F. (1890–1973); Signal Security the Royal Engineers Signal Service, who had Agency (SSA, 1943–1949); SIGSALY; Tannenberg, Battle of (1914); Turing, Alan been seconded from a variety of other regi- Mathison (1912–1954); Ultra; Welchman, ments, were recalled to their parent units, Gordon (1906–1985); Y Service; Yardley, which meant that the Experimental Wireless Herbert O. (1889–1958) Telegraphy Section lost most of its military Sources personnel. Those civilians and remaining Alvarez, David J., ed. 1999. Allied and Axis military staff were transferred to Woolwich Signals Intelligence in World War II. London: Dockyard and became involved with the Frank Cass. bulk manufacture of line and telephone Bamford, James. 2002. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. equipment. Toward the end of 1915 empha-

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sis turned again to wireless. In September and was involved in telephony, telegraphy, 1916, the unit, now with a staff of some 150, power supplies, and aerial systems. was transferred to a new site at Woolwich Partial evacuation of SEE to Warnham Common and was renamed the Signals Court in Sussex took place early in 1941, Experimental Establishment (SEE). SEE because of the bombing of Woolwich. SEE worked with communications, both wireless was renamed the Signals Research and and line, for the army, which included the Development Establishment (SRDE) in 1942, Royal Flying Corps. This work included and the next year, the entire operation was design, manufacture, and experimentation. concentrated at Christchurch, Hampshire, at Later additions included the Searchlight a site vacated by the Air Defence Research Experimental Establishment (an early ances- and Development Establishment. An outsta- tor of the Royal Signals and Radar Establish- tion was opened in the nearby New Forest at ment Malvern) and the Experimental Broomy Lodge because of a new require- Bridging Establishment (a forerunner of the ment to keep highly classified work more Military Engineering Experimental Establish- than 10 miles from the coast. ment). Some of the subjects studied included SRDE absorbed the radio laboratory of the vacuum tube circuitry, test and specification, Polish Research Institute, which was staffed line and radio telephony, microphones, direc- by the Polish army. This brought particular tion-finding radio compass, standards, jam- expertise on mine detection to supplement ming, tank communication, aircraft that already existing at SRDE. Work on communication, switchboards and genera- improved components and reliability came tors, batteries and accumulators, and enemy to prominence, with particular application to equipment. Following the formation of the jungle and tropical warfare. A tropical testing Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry in April outstation was established in Nigeria in 1918, some personnel transferred to Biggin 1944. Development of the multichannel Hill (south of London) to form the Wireless microwave link set was one of the major Experimental Establishment, Air Ministry. In SRDE successes during the war. By mid- 1922 this unit moved to the Royal Aircraft 1945, total strength of SRDE was about 1,500. Establishment at Farnborough, Hampshire, In the 1950s, SRDE undertook develop- where it was redesignated the Radio Depart- ment of “active” infrared viewing systems ment. for the army. This helped to foster a new and By the early 1920s, SEE had become a effective industry in Britain for the design mainly civilian establishment, controlled by and production of image intensifiers, with Royal Signals officers. Between the wars SEE associated electronics and fast optical sys- suffered from shortage of staff and funding. tems rugged enough to withstand battlefield This placed severe limitations on what it conditions. SRDE was to become involved in could do. One of the tasks that SEE advanced organizing groups of equipment into viable was the use of vacuum tube transmitters and operating systems. It dealt both with highly receivers in mobile radio stations. SEE also specialized radios (such as Larkspur and pioneered radio telephony for tanks and Clansman) for combat, and with very large vehicles generally and assisted in the speci- systems (such as Project Ptarmigan) for rear fication and test of improved valves and tactical areas. Worldwide strategic systems components. It also devised a “transceiver” using cable, high-frequency radio, and satel-

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lites (Project Skynet) were also studied. This resist concerted code breaking. Indeed, it was led SRDE into the computer and digital infor- suspected of being read by the Germans (as mation technology age. Among the postwar was the case, in nearly real-time terms, from achievements of SRDE was the development a listening post in the occupied Netherlands). of a mobile tactical satellite communications Thus users were told they could probably be earth station. SRDE established considerable overheard and to speak in guarded terms. A expertise in computer software and in the better solution was needed, and as quickly as use of computers offline to simulate the oper- possible. ation of complex systems. In 1936 Bell Labs had begun to develop a In 1976, the Royal Signals and Radar Estab- voice code (vocoder) system that could break lishment was formed by the amalgamation of up speech into digital bits on the sending three defense establishments: the Royal end to be reconstructed at the receiving end. Radar Establishment at Malvern, SRDE at While many patented systems existed by Christchurch, and the Services Electronics 1939, none offered truly secure messaging. Research Laboratory at Baldock. By the end Bell Labs personnel continued research into of 1980, the unified establishment was con- a workable secure voice system that would centrated at Malvern, with outstations at for- allow encoded telephonic communications mer airfields at Defford and Pershore. over great distances. By 1942 the basic work Cliff Lord on a system that dissected and then reassem- See also United Kingdom: Royal Corps of bled twelve different audio channels had Signals been perfected and was demonstrated for the U.S. Army. Source The new system utilized an entirely ran- Lord, Cliff. 2003. The Royal Corps of Signals: Unit dom means of generating key signals that Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and Its used no repeats, thus making it unbreakable. Antecedents. Solihull, UK: Helion. The key signals generated electrical noise, which could be recorded on hard vinyl 16- inch phonograph records that ran for twelve SIGSALY minutes. These were carried by courier to the sending and receiving locations and were A secure means of voice communication destroyed after a single use—in other words, between London and Washington DC, a key was only used once. Thus many of the SIGSALY (the odd name did not stand for special recordings were made, each one anything) was a secret telephony system destroyed after its specified use. Both the designed by Bell Telephone Laboratories. It sending and receiving ends, however, had to was used from 1943 to 1946 and remained be absolutely synchronized for up to an hour secret for another three decades. for effective communication. This was When fighting began in Europe in 1939, a accomplished by a mechanical timing device voice-scrambling radio coding system called on each terminal. The process was complex A-3 (also developed by Bell Labs) was and expensive, but it did work and was employed for voice communications between never broken. (Due to the buzzing sound military and political leaders in Washington some of the equipment could make, and London. But it was not robust enough to SIGSALY was often called “The Green Hor-

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net,” after a popular radio drama of the Christopher H. Sterling time.) See also Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); An Army contract was placed with Bell Code, Codebook; Code Breaking; Modula- Labs for two systems in 1942, and they were tion; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Spread placed into service in mid-1943. The new sys- Spectrum tem allowed for protected communications via actual conversations and the first military Sources Bennett, William R. 1983. “Secret Telephony as a conference among top Army officers took Historical Example of Spread-Spectrum place between London and Washington on Communications.” IEEE Transactions on July 15, 1943. The London terminal was built Communications Com–31 (1): 98–104. into a basement of the Selfridge department Boone, J. V., and R. R. Peterson. 2000. The Start store while the telephone terminal was in the of the Digital Revolution: SIGSALY Secure Digital Voice Communications in World Cabinet War Rooms located underground War II. Fort Meade, MD: National Security about a mile away. The Washington terminal Agency. was in the Pentagon. Eventually twelve Fagan, M. D., ed. 1978. “Secure Speech Transmis- SIGSALY terminals were developed and sion.” In A History of Engineering and Science in located in Paris, Algiers, Honolulu, Guam, the Bell System: National Service in War and Australia, one on a ship following General Peace (1925–1975), 291–317. New York: Bell Telephone Laboratories. Douglas MacArthur’s shifting headquarters Mehl, Donald E. 1997. SIGSALY: The Green and, toward the end of the war, in reoccupied Hornet—The World War II Unbreakable Code for Manila in the Philippines. Together, they sup- Secret High-Level Telephone Conferences, The ported some 3,000 voice conferences between Beginning of the Digital Age. Kansas City, MO: military and political leaders, including Pres- Donald E. Mehl. ident Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. After the war, units were also located (somewhat ironically) in the for- Silicon Valley, California mer Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin, the I. G. Farben headquarters building in Frankfurt Located primarily in Santa Clara and San that served as the center of the occupation, Mateo counties, among the many communi- and in Tokyo. ties north and west of San Jose south of San The 350 personnel of the special 805th Sig- Francisco, the former fruit orchards of the nal Company operated the terminals in central California coast became known as teams of fifteen at each location, which “Silicon Valley” at least by the early 1970s, required twice the maintenance time (16 named after the main element used in inte- hours) compared to actual usage (eight grated circuits. The region has for decades hours a day). The large and cumbersome been a major center of electronics research, SIGSALY equipment filled a room with vac- design, and manufacturing, much of it uum tube equipment and required extensive funded by military communications equip- power supplies and cooling. The forty racks ment contracts. of relevant equipment weighed some 55 At least four waves of technology entrepre- tons. A half-century later the same capabili- neurs created what would become Silicon ties could be contained in a briefcase, with Valley. Firms such as Federal Telegraph had space left over. manufactured radio equipment before World

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War I—Federal was a major radio supplier to and the growing military missile and civilian the U.S. Navy. But most radio and electronics space programs—helped to speed develop- patents were controlled by General Electric ment of more reliable and miniaturized com- and the Radio Corporation of America, both ponents. Defense contracts remained in New York. Thus, the first wave of change, dominant until the early 1960s, when changes stretching from the 1920s into early World in defense procurement policies led to dra- War II, centered on those interested in radio matic change. Sharply reduced defense orders (both broadcasting and shortwave) who and tighter contract accounting led to com- helped to expand an existing small vacuum pany retrenchment, layoffs, and mergers, and tube–manufacturing base, building on an surviving firms in the region increasingly active amateur radio community. Companies diversified to commercial markets. Another such as Eitel-McCullough (founded in 1934 downturn in the early 1970s was caused by to make radio tubes), Hewlett-Packard cuts in defense spending for electronics sys- (begun in a garage in 1937), and Litton Indus- tems and resulting manufacturing overcapac- tries (1932) were formed and soon grew. Stan- ity. Once again, many firms retrenched or got ford University faculty, especially engineer out of the business. Frederick Terman, played a substantial role in Consumer electronics demand for Silicon the university’s formation of one of the first Valley solid state products expanded strongly university-centered research “parks” in the in the early 1970s. Later in the decade, Silicon country. Engineers and others were drawn to Valley experienced a fourth wave as the the region by their ties to the university or the region focused on computer hardware and wonderful weather and then-inexpensive (later) software, driven first by the almost lifestyle of the area. overnight success of Apple (started in After substantial electronics growth and another garage, in 1976), and then Oracle technical developments during World War and many other firms based on the soon- II, the microwave tube business found a base thriving personal computer business. Stan- in the region, supported largely by growing dardization and mass production led to Cold War defense contracts for radar and sharp drops in component prices at the same other complex equipment. Varian Associates time speed and capability increased (Moore’s (formed in 1948) became a major player, Law). Defense contracts remained an impor- manufacturing complex specialized micro - tant, but no longer dominant, feature of Sil- wave and klystron vacuum tubes. The icon Valley economic life. Korean War (1950–1953) accelerated the Silicon Valley today is a center of electron- defense focus for most research and manu- ics innovation, sparking the creation of many facturing in the region. other “valleys” elsewhere in the United From the mid-1950s on, the region cen- States and the world. tered increasingly on silicon-based electron- Christopher H. Sterling ics components, beginning with Shockley See also Computer; Kilby, Jack St. Clair (1923– Semiconductor (formed in 1955) and Fair- 2005) and Noyce, Robert Norton (1927–1990); child Semiconductor (1957), which in turn Miniaturization; Solid State Electronics; spun off many other firms, among them Transistor; Vacuum Tube Intel, based on solid state electronics. Military procurement—for communications, radar, Sources

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Enochs, Hugh. 1962. Electronics Research in the operates on any of the 2,320 channels Space Age: The Story of Electronics Research between 30 and 88 MHz. When in the jam- and Development in the Palo Alto-Stanford resisting frequency-hopping mode, the unit Area. Palo Alto, CA: Chamber of Commerce. can send or receive, but not both at once. Lécuyer, Christophe. 2006. Making Silicon Valley: More than a quarter-million receivers (at an Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930– average unit value of about $6,500) have 1970. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. been produced. Leslie, Stuart. 1993. “How the West Was Won: SINCGARS uses a transceiver designed The Military and the Making of Silicon for easy transport in a backpack or vehicle. Valley.” In Technological Competitiveness: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on the Designed initially for voice traffic, improved Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Industries, SINCGARS radios can transmit and receive edited by William Aspray. New York: voice, tactical data, and record traffic mes- Institute of Electrical and Electronic sages and are consistent with North Atlantic Engineers. Treaty Organization interoperability require- Morgan, Jane. 1967. Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years. Palo Alto, CA: National Press ments. SINCGARS radios provide improved Books. data capability and forward error correction Rogers, Everett, and Judith K. Larsen. 1984. for low-speed data, as well as a global posi- Silicon Valley Fever: Growth of High-Technology tioning system interface and Internet con- Culture. New York: Basic Books. troller, which allows SINCGARS to interface “Silicon Valley: How It Really Works,” 1997. with a variety of military computers. Business Week, August 18, 64–110. The SINCGARS System Improvement Program of the 1990s made the radios more Single Channel Ground compatible with the Internet. SINCGARS and Airborne Radio System equipment (there are easily a dozen different (SINCGARS) types) has been sold to a number of Ameri- can allies. By the early 2000s, the SINCGARS The Single Channel Ground and Airborne system was beginning to give way to digital Radio System (SINCGARS) is a family of replacement systems within the Global Infor- FM combat radios that operate on the VHF mation Grid system, especially the Joint Tac- spectrum band. They were designed as the tical Radio System. primary means of tactical command and Christopher H. Sterling control for infantry, armor, and artillery See also Global Information Grid (GIG); Global units, and, more recently, airborne units as Positioning System (GPS); Internet; Jamming; well. They replaced a variety of radios used Joint Tactical Radio System by U.S. forces in Vietnam in the late 1960s (JTRS); Mobile Communications; North and early 1970s. Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Design began in 1974 to create a modular Communications & Information Systems Agency; Radio voice system with maximum equipment commonality, and production began in 1983. Sources Prototype SINCGARS ground radios passed Department of the Army. 1996. Talk II- initial tests in January 1988, and production SINCGARS Multiservice Communications deliveries began at that time. An airborne Procedures for the Single-Channel Ground and version of the SINCGARS radio followed in Airborne Radio System. Army Field Manual the mid-1990s. The SINCGARS radio system

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11–1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Military SSB applications developed more Office. slowly. Western Electric developed a four Olive-Drab.com. “Military Radios: voice-channel SSB transmitter by 1938. It SINCGARS.” [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] http://www.olive-drab was purchased by both the U.S. Army and .com/od_electronics_sincgars.php. U.S. Navy for military high-frequency fixed- station communications. The Naval Research Laboratory developed key elements of a Single Sideband (SSB) workable and economically viable system in the mid-1950s. By the early 1960s the Single sideband (SSB) is a type of AM radio U.S. Navy, United Kingdom Royal Navy, transmission first experimentally developed and others had almost completely converted in 1915 by what later became Bell Telephone to SSB radio operation both at sea and on Laboratories. It was perfected and used by shore. By international agreement, ships AT&T for transatlantic radio-telephone calls completed after 1973 had to be equipped starting in 1927, and over the next decade to with SSB equipment. increase domestic network capacity. Christopher H. Sterling By eliminating the duplicated sideband and carrier from a radio transmission, See also Modulation; Naval Research Labora- tory (NRL); Radio Silence; Spectrum required bandwidth is reduced by half. This Frequencies; Spectrum Management allows far more radio communication within a given segment of spectrum. Because the Sources carrier radio frequency is also filtered out, Benton, Mildred. 1956. Single-Sidebands in there is no transmission unless information Communication Systems: A Bibliography. is being sent, a factor especially useful for Washington, DC: Naval Research Laboratory. covert operations protected by radio silence. Single Sideband for the Radio Amateur. 1954. Efficiency is also notably improved. But West Hartford, CT: American Radio there is a cost for these gains—the improved Relay League. performance adds complexity to the design of the equipment. Therefore SSB is normally employed in already expensive radio devices or cases where the gains are vital—such as in Site R military situations. At first, however, the necessary equipment Site R is the shorthand name for the Alter- for SSB was both bulky and expensive—and nate Joint Communications Center (AJCC), a potential benefits of the technology were facility north of Washington DC that houses often ignored in an era before spectrum con- the Alternate National Military Command servation became important. SSB was taken Center. up by a few amateur radio operators in the As Cold War tensions increased after mid-1930s and by more of them after World World War II, U.S. military authorities War II to help reduce crowding. Collins sought a location to which they could be Radio introduced a mechanical filter in 1952, evacuated in the event of a Soviet nuclear and soon SSB was coming came into wide- attack on the Washington DC area. In 1950, spread amateur use as transmitters became Raven Rock Mountain, near the border more stable. dividing Maryland and Pennsylvania, was

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chosen as an optimal site. It was located near tunnels and began construction of a surviv- Camp (later Fort) Albert C. Ritchie, which able command-and-control center. By the had housed intelligence activities during 1990s, more than 2,000 personnel worked at World War II. The “alternate Pentagon” pro- Fort Ritchie, primarily in support of Site R. In ject took more than $35 million to construct. spite of this activity, the 1995 base closure A significant technical achievement was the commission listed Fort Ritchie for deactiva- excavation of a half-million cubic yards of tion, and it closed as an active base on 1 rock in less than a year. More than three October 1998. Its federal employees were miles of tunnels are associated with the com- relocated to an Army depot in Letterkenny, plex. Equipped with emergency power and Pennsylvania, or to Fort Detrick, Maryland, advanced filtration, the center is three stories about 30 miles away. Site R (which continued high and can withstand immense blast to function) came under the command of effects. Connecting transmitter stations were Fort Detrick in late 1998. built at Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and Currently located at Site R are computer Sharpsburg, Maryland. By 1953 the secret services that support the Joint Staff and the AJCC was established. Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as Between 1953 and 1971, the Army’s com- other defense elements. Technical support munications element at Site R (for Raven at the facility includes switching, transmis- Rock), a part of the Army Joint Support Com- sion, distribution, and power operations. mand, provided support for the facility. This Atop Mount Quirauk, overlooking the Fort unit eventually became the Directorate of Ritchie site, are other related and active mil- Telecommunications, remaining under the itary communications facilities. The military Fort Ritchie commander. After 1976, it under- services maintain an emergency operations went a series of reorganizations and changes center at Site R that is active twenty-four in name and reporting structure. Most base hours a day. operations activities were removed from its In early 2002, the Bush administration mission, leaving its focus on communications. acknowledged publicly that Vice President With the increased importance of AJCC Dick Cheney had been secreted away at Site throughout the 1960s, Fort Ritchie’s primary R during the weeks following the 11 Sep- mission evolved into installation support for tember 2001 attacks. As with the military at Site R—indeed, after the early 1970s, Fort Site R, the legislative branch had its continu- Ritchie became a premier provider of military ity of government facility underneath a wing information services in general. In 1971 the of the posh Greenbrier Resort in West Vir- Army Strategic Communications Command ginia, though it closed soon after the Wash- relocated to the post, followed within three ington Post exposed its existence in 1992. years by the Army Information Systems Engi- Another secure operating facility is main- neering Command–Continental United States tained by the Federal Emergency Manage- and related units. ment Agency at Mt. Weather, located near For a few years in the late 1970s, a consid- Bluemont, Virginia. erable improvement program was imple- Kent G. Sieg mented at Site R, and a Department of Defense special projects office extended the See also Underground Communication Centers

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Source communication, and one useful only in Bamford, James. 2004. A Pretext for War: 9/11, hours of daylight. Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Colored smoke was an additional option, Agencies. New York: Doubleday. though some of the problems involved are evident in a nonmilitary application—as in the practice of announcing the election of a Smoke new pope for the Catholic Church—and the occasional confusion caused thereby. Smoke Signaling by the use of puffs of smoke from was a logical choice for communicating a fire is a form of long-distance visual com- papal election results, because church tradi- munication developed by both Native Amer- tion called for cardinals to burn their ballots icans and personnel manning signal towers after each vote to maintain conclave secrecy. along China’s Great Wall—and probably But there have been occasional troubles in used by others. discerning whether the smoke was black (no By covering an open fire with a blanket pope choice made) or white (a new pope and quickly removing it, a puff of smoke has been elected). can be generated. Adding green or wet mate- Smoke can also be used to obscure enemy rial to an existing fire can create more smoke. communications or to send deceptive sig- With some training, the sizes, shapes, and nals. Smoke bombs can be sent by means of timing of smoke puffs can be controlled, artillery or dropped from airplanes. though this often requires two to four men Smoke signals are still used today in fire to control the blanket. Depending on and rescue work as well as some military weather conditions and time of day, of missions. Use of smoke signals is one feature course, such puffs may be observed by any- of survival training in the military. Indeed, one within its visual range. one can purchase colored smoke signal With this in mind, signaling was often devices and smoke grenades on the open done from heights—natural or manmade— market. The term “smoke signals” has also to maximize the viewable distance. The tow- entered the lexicon to indicate a message ers along the Great Wall of China are one that may not be very clear. example of artificial signaling stations that Christopher H. Sterling used, among other methods, smoke signals. In the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) wolf drop- See also Ancient Signals; Color; Fire/Flame/ pings were used in signal fires in the belief Torch; Great Wall of China; Hadrian’s Wall; that such smoke would rise straight up with- Native American Signaling out dispersing in air currents. There was no generally understood or Sources standardized code for smoke signals. Signals Acker, Lewis F. 1939. “Communication Systems were more often of some predetermined pat- of the American Indians.” Signal Corps Bulletin 103 (January–March): 63–70. tern developed and shared by a given tribe Conway, Emmet A. “Smoke Signal Bowls—The or even a specific sender and receiver. Smoke First WWW.” [Online article; retrieved signals tend to convey only very simple mes- September 2005.] http://www.oldeforester sages and are thus a very limited form of .com/sigbo.html.

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Department of the Army. 1984. Deliberate Smoke the Nobel Prize in 2000. They both deter- Operations. Field Manual 3–50. Washington, mined that squeezing all elements of an elec- DC: Government Printing Office. trical circuit—transistors, connections, and Department of the Army. 1992. “Mortar Smoke Operations.” In Tactical Employment of Mortars, other electronic devices—onto a tiny silicon Appendix C. Field Manual 7–90. Washington, chip could be accomplished and would save DC: Government Printing Office. considerable space while speeding up signal Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical processing speed. Eliminating the need for Communication Techniques. Orlando, FL: individually handwired connections between Martin- Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, transistors and other elements would also 1974). greatly increase circuit reliability, reduce manufacturing cost, and save time. The potential for further IC improvement was Solid State Electronics huge. These substantial benefits became a vital The solid state electronics revolution began part of the Cold War era of miniaturization with the late 1940s’ development of the tran- being driven by developing missile technol- sistor and became possible with the innova- ogy. Thus the Air Force was immediately tion of integrated circuits a decade later. interested in the IC innovation and provided Modern solid state technology was driven by research funding vital to further research. defense needs and has had an immense The Navy was not interested at first, and the impact on all military electronics. Army was uncertain how the IC break- The notion of solid state electronics had through might fit into its existing projects. been suggested in principle in the early U.S. electronics manufacturers, many of 1950s and was of central interest to the them focused on the thriving market for mil- armed services. If workable, such systems itary equipment (inadvertently leaving the promised huge benefits of special value to consumer electronics field open to foreign military applications—robustness, lower firms), were initially more skeptical, but weight and power requirements, and far were soon won over by the obvious IC ben- greater capacity. The U.S. Air Force con- efits. The first products using ICs (which tracted with Westinghouse in 1959 to exper- then cost between $50 and $100 each) were in iment with “molecular electronics.” The mass production by 1962. Army Signal Corps was already developing Today’s solid state electronics rely on use a “micro-module” project to shrink compo- of the microscopic, sandwichlike IC “chip,” nent size across a variety of military needs. which is a careful microscopic arrangement Research and development work was under- of transistors, other devices, and all of their way at many companies, usually funded by connections. Development of the steadily Air Force or Navy contracts. improving IC chip virtually created the mod- Over the space of a few months in 1958– ern computer industry, transforming once 1959, Jack Kilby (1923–2005) of Texas Instru- room-size vacuum tube–powered machines ments and Robert Noyce (1927–1990) of into today’s more capable and flexible array Fairchild Semiconductor independently of solid state mainframes, minicomputers, developed similar notions of an “integrated” and personal computers. Gordon Moore of circuit (IC), for which Kilby belatedly shared Intel expressed his famous “law” more than

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four decades ago—that every eighteen ception of phone and telegraph lines and months the capacity of the chip will double were able to put this skill to good use in while its price drops. Moore’s Law has been their war against the British. Wireless tech- most publicly evident in the improving nology was well understood, but sets that capacity and declining price of personal they had ordered were impounded by computers—from the Intel 8086 chip of 1978 British authorities when the equipment (featuring 29,000 transistors), to early arrived. twenty-first-century chips with more than The South African Republic’s State 50 million transistors. Artillery had a field telegraph section from Paced by steady improvements in solid 1890 to 1896 and members were also trained state technology, the worldwide electronics in use of the heliograph. The section was re- market has grown from $29 billion in 1961 to formed again in 1898, and was finally dis- nearly $1.2 trillion by the early twenty-first banded in 1902 after the Boer War. The century—it may well become the world’s Orange Free State also had a telegraph sec- single largest industry. tion from 1898 to 1902. Christopher H. Sterling Signaling detachments in Natal were See also Kilby, Jack St. Clair (1923–2005) and amalgamated with the Natal Telegraph Noyce, Robert Norton (1927–1990); Miniatur- Corps in 1903. This comprised two units of ization; Transistor fifty men each. During the Zulu Rebellion of 1905–1906, the unit was reinforced by post Sources and telegraph staff. Correspondingly, the Braun, Ernest, and Stuart Macdonald. 1982. Transvaal Signalling and Field Telegraph Revolution in Miniature: The History and Impact of Semiconductor Electronics. New York: Section was formed in 1903 and adminis- Cambridge University Press. tered as part of the Transvaal Light Infantry Malone, Michael S. 1995. The Microprocessor: A until 1907, when it became independent and Biography. Santa Clara, CA: was renamed Transvaal Signalling and Field TELOS/Springer-Verlag. Telegraph Corps. In 1908, it amalgamated Morris, P. R. 1990. A History of the World with the Volunteer Company of Military Semiconductor Industry. London: Peter Peregrinus. Signallers, which had been established on Queisser, Hans. 1988. The Conquest of the 14 September 1904. By 1910 it had a strength Microchip. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- of fifty, largely composed of government sity Press. telegraphists. Reid, T. R. 1984. The Chip: How Two Americans In 1912, the South African Field Telegraph Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolu- tion. New York: Simon and Schuster. and Postal Corps was formed. On 1 July 1913, both the Natal and Transvaal signaling units were absorbed into the Active Citizen Force South Africa while retaining their original titles. With establishment of the Permanent Force in 1913, The Boer republics were quick to embrace arrangements were made for a signalling modern communications technology at the branch at the South African Military School at end of the nineteenth century, establishing Tempe. The Permanent Force Engineer Signal proficiency in telegraphy, telephony, and Service was formed in 1914 and lasted until semaphore. They also understood the inter- 1922. South Africa sent 900 signalers to

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Europe and 1,500 to East Africa. In 1914, the Kenya, in the Sinai Desert, and along the Natal Telegraph Corps amalgamated with South African coast. After the end of the war, the Transvaal Signalling Corps, and a year SSS was demobilized. later the units were incorporated into the On 18 October 1946, the South African South African Field Telegraph and Postal Corps of Signals (Permanent Force) was Corps. The corps was disbanded on 30 Sep- formed. Citizen Force Signals remained to tember 1915. British signaling equipment provide communications in conjunction with was used by all of these South African units. the Permanent Force in times of emergency. A The Cape Fortress Engineers included a small signal corps was built up to provide signal section from 1914 to 1920, when the communications for the various commands unit was absorbed by the South African within the country and support for the Engineer Corps. Fortress Engineers provided infantry and armored divisions. During the communications at fortified static defense 1970s and 1980s, the corps expanded to meet installations such as those at Cape Town. the perceived external military threat to South This included defense, telephone, and elec- Africa. The corps was on operational duty trical duties. In 1922, it became the Fortress along the Angolan border. With the political Engineers and Signal Section and after 1931 changes of the 1990s, the army was reorga- the 4 Company, Cape Garrison Artillery. The nized and the corps downsized. In 1999, the unit was disbanded in 1933. Command and Management Information On 1 November 1923, the South African Division was established to meet the chang- Corps of Signals (Active Citizen Force) was ing demands of the twenty-first century. established. An alliance with the Royal Cliff Lord Corps of Signals lasted from 1926 until 1961. See also Boer War Wireless (1899–1902); United This close tie ensured that the latest doctrine Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals and technology was available to the South African Corps. During World War I, the Sources corps served in the advance through East Buchan, John. 1920. The History of the South Africa, and also in North Africa, Italy, and African Forces in France, 279–316. London: SA Signal Company (reprinted by Imperial War Madagascar. Tactics and equipment were Museum and Battery Press, 1992). similar to other dominions of the time and Jacobs, F. J., et al., eds. 1975. Suid-Afrikaanse were based on British-manufactured wire- Seinkorps/South African Corps of Signals. less and associated equipment. A number of Publikasie No. 4. Pretoria: Dokumentasiedi- signal units were raised for service abroad, ens S.A.W. Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson, 2003. The Royal and a brigade signal company saw service in Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps Madagascar. (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: Of a more diverse nature was the Special Helion. Signal Services (SSS), formed at Johannes- burg in 1939, to deal with radio direction finding, as radar had become a signals Spanish-American War (1898) responsibility. The first radar set was suc- cessfully designed and built in South Africa This short but “splendid little war” of a few and tested at the University of the Witwater- months proved more important to subse- srand in 1939. SSS operated radar sites in quent world politics than to warfare. It

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pushed the United States into the league of There was no radio, radar, or scouting air- world powers while dropping Spain from craft to locate Schley’s squadron—merely a the rank it had held for more than three cen- week-old (or older) report on where that turies. From the standpoint of signal sys- squadron had been and where it might be tems, the entire war might well be summed heading. It was natural for Long to expect up by the early observation of the command- that his telegrams would elicit a response in ing U.S. Army general in Cuba—the portly a short time. Instead he soon concluded Sch- General William R. Shafter—who said he ley was a dilettante, simply unreliable, dis- did not want men carrying signal flags, but liked orders—or all three. A growing lack of rather men with guns. The good general, as trust plagued the careers of both men. many leaders before and since, failed to real- Off Santiago, Cuba, naval fighting began ize the vital importance of accurate two-way with a simple flaghoist signal to disregard communication, as well as apparently being movements of the commander in chief, unaware of the brawn required to wave for Admiral William T. Sampson (who was hours the 4 × 4-foot wig-wag flags used most aboard the flagship USS New York, moving to commonly in Army signals. There were also Siboney for a prearranged meeting with several historic firsts in many Army signal Shafter). The USS Brooklyn’s morning signal modes from the use of field telephones, field record logs sixteen key signals (three via telegraphy, and observation signal balloons. wig-wag and thirteen flaghoist) reporting It took less than a month for the Navy to “enemy ship’s escaping,” “clear for action,” organize a coast signal “close up,” “the enemy has surrendered,” system of 230 coast observation stations “report your casualties,” and “this is a great equipped with binoculars and telescopes day for our country.” connected by telegraph and telephone to Communications on Cuba included an central headquarters. Couriers and messen- Army Signal Corps company with fifteen ger animals and pigeons were also widely red and fifteen white signal flags, each four used in Cuba. The irony of this war’s mixed feet square; another ten red and ten white signal success seems best illustrated by the signal flags of half that size; fifteen three- continuing frustration of Navy Secretary piece poles 12 feet long (for flag waving); John D. Long, who attempted to exercise eight heliographs; six aluminum signal personal command and control over naval lanterns; ten telescopes; ten pairs of field units in Cuban waters—most unsuccessfully glasses; six compasses; four sets of telegraph concerning the “Flying Squadron” led by instruments; and ten dry-cell batteries. After Commodore Winfield Scott Schley. Secretary the war, the unit commander concluded that Long sent telegrams that were quickly trans- there had never been a campaign in which mitted to the naval base at Key West, Florida. electric communication was more impera- There, however, his messages had to be tive. Visual signals were used in the Santi- typed out on paper, placed in a sealed enve- ago, Cuba, campaign only between ships lope, and handed to the commanding officer and between ships and shore. The communi- of the next available small naval patrol craft, cations situation was different in the Philip- which then had to seek out Commodore pines. Admiral George Dewey used both Schley’s flagship, the USS Brooklyn, some- Army and Navy wig-wag flags for signaling where in the waters surrounding Cuba. during the Battle of Manila Bay. Flags also

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provided communication under fire during be resolved through spectrum management the fight for Manila while telephone lines policies. Several frequency bands are espe- were being laid. cially important for national security needs. Yet despite Long’s frustrated efforts at Electromagnetic radiation is the propaga- control from Washington DC, this remained tion of energy (including radio signals of all a war where field commanders relied—as kinds) that travel through space in the form before—largely on their own judgment. The of waves. Radio spectrum is that relatively Army knew intelligence reports on the loca- small portion of the overall electromagnetic tion of the Spanish fleet came from a spy in spectrum that carries these radio waves. And the Havana telegraph office, and so they only part of that radio spectrum is techni- believed them. But naval commanders cally and economically viable for communi- Sampson and Schley, knowing only that cations use, though the proportion of usable these reports came from the Army, remained spectrum is increasing all the time—as is skeptical. Dewey, on his own and much far- demand for it. ther away in the Philippines, had more suc- Many spectrum terms have passed into cess than anyone with the possible exception general usage, including very high fre- of Rough Rider Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, quency (VHF) and ultra-high frequency whose men took San Juan Hill without any (UHF), where, among many other services, major Signal Corps contribution. one finds broadcast television channels (a David L. Woods “channel” is a set of frequencies used to See also Couriers; Horses and Mules; Human transmit a single outlet of any given service) Signaling; Pigeons; Semaphore (Mechanical and FM radio. But so have terms defined by Telegraphs); Telegraph; Telephone their wavelength, such as shortwave and microwave. Converting these to the actual Sources frequencies they occupy, we find shortwave Freidel, Frank. 1958. The Splendid Little War. services use the HF, or high frequency, band, Boston: Little, Brown. Giddings, Howard A. 1900. Exploits of Signal and microwave is found in the UHF and Corps in the War with Spain. Kansas City, MO: higher bands. Hudson-Kimberly Publishing. Historically, spectrum use for telecommu- Schley, W. S. 1910. Forty-five Years Under the Flag. nication purposes began with the first wire- New York: Appleton. less experiments in the late 1890s in the Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical Com - lower ranges of what are now called the munication Techniques. Orlando, FL: Martin- Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). medium frequencies (MF), or about 300 kHz to as high as 3 MHz. As technical knowledge of spectrum capabilities and how to use Spectrum Frequencies them improved, driven especially by techno- logical developments during the two world The use of radio spectrum frequencies is vital wars, ever higher bands of spectrum became to modern military communications and to viable for military and later civilian commu- most aspects of electronic warfare, whether nications use. analog as in the past, or digital as now and Major recent changes include far more effi- increasingly in the future. Military needs cient use of spectrum by many users (such as often conflict with civilian demand and must digital compression of signals to use less

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This chart shows the radio spectrum frequencies that are used by both military and civilian applications. The shaded portion is useful in telecommunications and most frequencies are shared, though some are reserved for military use. Spectrum never “wears out” but can be overused, leading to interference and other problems. (U.S. Department of Commerce)

spectrum) and far greater use of optical fiber of the atmosphere, much as a flashlight will cable links (replacing spectrum-using reflect off a mirror), as in AM radio broad- microwave and satellite links for point-to- casting. As the radio waves travel very dif- point communications), which allow mas- ferent paths, this can lead to interference, sive capacity while freeing up spectrum for especially at night. Higher frequencies (those other uses. Furthermore, a greater degree of at VHF and above) use direct (line of sight) spectrum sharing among commercial and waves. These different characteristics are military users is likely, as is commercial pro- important to understand when considering vision of many military links. specific applications. The following is a Frequencies are measured in terms of thou- description of frequencies, listed from lowest sands of cycles per second, or Hertz (named to highest. after the German physicist who first trans- ELF (extremely low frequencies) range below mitted wireless signals in the late nineteenth 30 kHz and are of special value to the Navy. century). These are expressed in thousands Making use of ground conductivity, these (kilohertz, or kHz), millions (megahertz, or frequencies are used for submarine commu- MHz), or billions (gigahertz, or GHz) of nication from large transmission facilities cycles per second. For convenient reference, that require huge buried antenna arrays. over time we have come to divide spectrum HF (high frequencies) range from 3 to 30 into specific “bands” that share propagation MHz and are widely used for international characteristics (how they carry a wave or shortwave radio broadcasting, such as the signal). The different bands vary in their Voice of America. Some third-generation mode of propagating signals. Lower fre- mobile digital telephones have apparently quencies (the LF through HF bands) utilize caused interference with military satellites in groundwaves, where radio waves move the 1,755–1,850 MHz band—just one exam- along the surface of water or earth, or indeed ple of growing problems of too many ser- through surface layers. These would include vices attempting to use limited frequencies. AM or shortwave radio services. Medium VHF (very high frequencies) range from 30 to frequencies (MF band) use both ground- 300 MHz and are among the most hotly con- waves and sky waves (where radio waves tested frequencies, as they can serve a variety are reflected back to earth from upper levels of conflicting needs equally well—but not all

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of them at any one time. Among military Spectrum Management; Spread Spectrum; applications in this band are both fixed and Tropospheric Scatter mobile services for all three services. Sources UHF (ultra-high frequencies) are known to Defense Science Board Task Force. 2003. most Americans as the location of many tele- Wideband Radio Frequency Modulation: vision channels; these range from 300 MHz Dynamic Access to Mobile Information to 3 GHz. Put another way, all radio waves Networks. Washington, DC: Department of at this range and higher fall into the Defense. microwave category. Devereux, Tony. 1991. “Frequency Bands of Electromagnetic Radiation, Military SHF (super high frequencies) range from 3 to History and Importance.” In Messenger 30 GHz and include many military radar Gods of Battle: Radio, Radar, Sonar: The applications such as radar systems of various Story of Electronics in Battle, 80–81. London: kinds. Included are the “C” band satellite Brassey’s. uplink and downlink channels, and (though General Accounting Office. 2001. Defense Spectrum Management: More Analysis Needed higher up) Air Force and Navy “K” band to Support Use Decisions for 1755–1850 MHz (20–21 GHz) satellite links (that band is Band. Washington, DC: Government Printing restricted by the North Atlantic Treaty Orga- Office. nization to military use). Use above 60 GHz Hurt, Gerald, et al. 1995. Spectrum Reallocation is more difficult due to higher power needs Final Report. Special Publication 95–32. and other costs. Washington, DC: National Telecommunica- tions and Information Administration. EHF (extremely high frequencies) range from Joint Spectrum Center. Home page. [Online 30 to 300 GHz, are the latest frequencies now information; retrieved November 2004.] being used, and about which more is learned http://www.jsc.mil/. all the time. Radar installations operate in Kobb, Bennet Z. 1995. Spectrum Guide: Radio this band. Anything higher verges into Frequency Allocations in the United States, 30 MHz—300 GHz. Falls Church, VA: New infrared spectrum bands. Signals Press. Even applying spectrum-use labels Merrill, Albert, and Marsha Weiskopf. 2001. becomes a security issue because in so doing, “Critical Issues in Spectrum Management for users reveal basic mission information Defense Space Systems.” [Online article; (needed to identify any potential or actual retrieved November 2004.] http://www radio frequency interference)—and thus can .aero.org/publications/crosslink/winter 2002/02.html. expose system vulnerabilities that should National Telecommunications and Information not be communicated outside classified Administration. 2003. “United States channels. Recognizing this in a post-9/11 Spectrum Allocations Chart.” [Online world, the spectrum-management process information; retrieved August 2005.] is moving toward greater confidentiality. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/ allochrt.pdf. Christopher H. Sterling

See also Communication Satellites; Electromag- netic Pulse (EMP); Fiber Optics; Jamming; Spectrum Management Meteor Burst Communications (MBC); Microwave; Modulation; National Tele com- munications and Information Administra- Spectrum management is a process intended tion (NTIA); Single Sideband (SSB); to allow the most effective use of the natural resource of electromagnetic (or radio) fre-

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quencies by the greatest number and variety United States and twenty-seven other pow- of services and users consonant with the ers discussed maritime communication and need to limit mutual interference. Such man- agreed to establish an international bureau to agement combines technical, economic, and gather and distribute information on wire- political elements and is nearly always less stations around the world. Despite sup- administered by governments, within a port from the Army and Navy, commercial regional and global context of spectrum allo- opposition prevented American ratification cations and relevant technical standards. The of the resulting treaty until 1912. military services have always been the pri- Initial American wireless legislation came mary federal government users of spectrum in 1910 with a brief act establishing minimal in the United States. requirements for the use of radio at sea. In Technically and economically useful radio light of the Titanic disaster it was strengthened frequencies, while slowly increasing all the two years later. Later in 1912 a separate Radio time, make up but a fraction (about 20 per- Act was the first to deal with allocation of fre- cent) of the total electromagnetic spectrum. quencies. By that time government, amateur, Most military applications are found in the and commercial wireless stations were suffer- VHF (very high frequency, or 30–300 MHz), ing mutual interference. The 1912 law pro- UHF (ultra-high frequency, or 300 MHz to 3 vided the country’s first allocations (including GHz) and SHF (super high frequency, or 3– 187.5 to 500 kHz for federal, including mili- 30 GHz) spectrum bands. Very little spec- tary, use) and established the Department of trum is designated for the exclusive use of Commerce as licensing authority, but granted the military; rather it is shared with other it no discretion to deny any application. The users, with transmitters separated by dis- Navy briefly took control of all wireless trans- tance, time, or frequency to reduce interfer- mitters during American participation in ence. Spectrum management involves three World War I, but lost an attempt to continue related processes: allocation, allotment, and that role afterward. assignment. “Allocation” means the setting Though it remained in force for fifteen aside of frequency blocks or bands for a spe- years, the 1912 law began to break down in cific service and user (private, commercial, the early 1920s under pressure from newly government). “Allotment” is the location of established broadcasters demanding more specific channels within an allocation to spectrum space. It was replaced by the Radio specified locations, while “assignment” is Act of 1927, which divided authority for the actual licensing of a transmitter to use an spectrum allocation between the Federal allotment. Radio Commission for commercial users and American spectrum regulation began with the Department of Commerce for federal the Wireless Telegraphy Board, convened by needs. Finally, this was superseded by the President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. A Communications Act of 1934, which, though panel made up of one Army and three Navy amended, still forms the basis for American officers and a representative of the Depart- spectrum management. ment of Agriculture outlined recommenda- As government use of wireless and thus tions primarily concerning maritime wireless need for spectrum allocations expanded to use. The first global maritime wireless con- more agencies, the Interdepartmental Radio ference had taken place a year earlier in Advisory Committee (IRAC) was estab- Berlin. At a 1906 Berlin conference, the lished in 1922 to coordinate spectrum use

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by federal and private users, including bur- Political pressure on the Department of geoning broadcasting. Housed within the Defense to give up some of its allocated spec- National Telecommunications and Informa- trum space increased after 1970 with the tion Administration (NTIA, part of the growth of various commercial mobile com- Department of Commerce) since 1978, IRAC munication services. Arguments were made continues to function today, providing essen- that the military was “warehousing” spec- tial coordination across nearly two dozen trum for possible future use. The conflicts federal agencies (including the armed ser- increased as military and civilian spectrum vices) and with the Federal Communications usage needs increasingly focused on much Commission representing all other spectrum of the same spectrum space. The income- users. NTIA has overall responsibility for generating potential of spectrum auctions to and management of all federal spectrum commercial users during the 1990s added allocations, including those for the military. congressional pressure on the military to As telecommunications/electronics as - transfer underused spectrum allotments for sumed an ever more central role in the Army, use by the commercial sector. This process Navy, and (since 1947) Air Force, so too did continued into the early twenty-first century, the spectrum needs of those services. Even in often stretching over many years to allow the 1930s, IRAC focused on growing Army time for military users to relocate elsewhere. and Navy demands for more spectrum space The three military services present their for tactical purposes. The Army alone was spectrum needs through IRAC, through a operating some 1,500 transmitters by 1932. layered process of supervision by several These needs expanded exponentially during specialized agencies, beginning with the World War II, and by 1943 some requests individual service and coordinated at the were being denied for lack of available spec- Department of Defense level. The deputy trum. At the same time war-driven research undersecretary for command control com- made technically and economically viable munications and intelligence has overall the use of more frequencies in the UHF and responsibility for U.S. military spectrum higher ranges. management policy. The individual services Spectrum-using modes of communication center their spectrum management concerns expanded further during both the Korean in either the Naval Electromagnetic Spec- and Vietnam wars. As the latter wound trum Center, the Army Communications- down in the early 1970s, the Army was oper- Electronics Services Organization, or the Air ating more than a half-million transmitters (a Force Frequency Management Agency. The typical field army using more than 75,000). U.S. Military Communications-Electronics The Navy and Marine Corps operated about Board (MCEB) is the main coordinating 300,000 transmitters and more receivers on agency working with these three service ships, aircraft, and land. The Air Force added entities. MCEB reports to the secretary of about 130,000 transmitters, for a Department defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It of Defense total of nearly a million trans- guides defense preparation and coordination mitters and far more receivers. Spectrum fre- of technical directives in allocating spectrum quency needs to support all of this were allotments received from NTIA. considerable, and the pace of technological The Joint Frequency Panel (JFP) is the change was increasing demand. principal defense coordinating agency for

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spectrum management and works closely Networks. Washington, DC: Department of with other federal agencies represented on Defense. IRAC. JFP also reviews, develops, coordi- Levin, Harvey J. 1971. The Invisible Resource: Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum. nates, and implements Department of Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Defense directives, studies, reports, and rec- National Telecommunications and Information ommendation for MCEB. Any service appli- Administration. “Office of Spectrum cation for frequency allocation must be Management (OSM).” [Online information; approved by JFP before funds are authorized retrieved November 2004.] http://www .ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/osmhome.html. for the development of new equipment that Office of Telecommunications Policy. 1975. The will radiate electromagnetic energy. An Radio Frequency Spectrum: United States Use application is also required for equipment and Management. Washington, DC: Govern- receiving signals, if interference protection is ment Printing Office. desired. In addition, an assignment in the Robinson, John H. 1985. Spectrum Management appropriate frequency band must be Policy in the United States: An Historical Account. OPP Working Paper Series No. 15. obtained from the Frequency Assignment Washington, DC: Federal Communications Subcommittee of IRAC prior to the operation Commission, Office of Plans and Policy. of any transmitting equipment for testing, Roosa, Paul C., Jr. 1992. Federal Spectrum training, or operational use. Management: A Guide to the NTIA Process. Given the complexity of spectrum man- Special Publication 91–25. Washington, DC: National Telecommunications and Informa- agement, considerable ongoing training tion Administration. takes place. NTIA runs regular spectrum management courses for U.S. and overseas officials. The Army operates the Interservice Radio Frequency Management School at Spies Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. The intensive curriculum provides exposure A vital if clandestine seeker of military infor- to techniques common to all defense spec- mation, dating from ancient times, has been trum personnel. Emphasis is placed on the spy. A spy’s methods of communicating national and international regulations and the information gained are the focus here, for standards with particular impact on the lacking such means, no spy can fulfill his or global mission of the American military. her function. Many long-used methods, such Christopher H. Sterling as secret writing (disappearing ink, hidden messages), concealed messages (in everyday See also Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP); Interna- objects such as cigarettes, buttons, batteries, tional Telecommunication Union (ITU); Jamming; Microwave; National Telecommu- or cosmetics), and the use of dead drops nications and Information Administration (using a prearranged location for the drop- (NTIA); Single Sideband (SSB); Spectrum ping off and picking up information) are not Frequencies; Spread Spectrum; Wireless described here—nor are the many methods Telegraph Board used over the years for encipherment of written materials (including one-time pads). Sources Defense Science Board Task Force. 2003. Photographic methods have been one Wideband Radio Frequency Modulation: prime method of communicating secret infor - Dynamic Access to Mobile Information mation. Making photos as small as possible

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(yet readable with sufficient magnification) manufacture of very tiny spy radios for the has been a goal at least since the American Central Intelligence Agency and other agen- Civil War (1861–1865). Microdots are pho- cies. But their transmissions could still be tographs (of messages or copied documents) picked up and traced, leading to the applica- reduced to be no larger than a period on this tion of burst communication methods (also page—and often smaller yet. Such micro- developed after World War II) so individual scopic photos are more easily hidden in a transmissions would be of micro- variety of ways. The cameras that take such second length, making effective tracing pictures can also be very small and easily hid- nearly impossible. Another option, espe- den—and some have even been carried by cially useful in urban areas, was infrared birds (or more recently drone aircraft). Appli- transmission, which made radio signaling cation of digital technology in recent years has difficult to intercept. made the process of making and communi- As most modes of electronic communi- cating such tiny pictures even easier. cation have steadily evolved from analog Since World War I, radio has been an to digital, so have options for spy com- important mode of rapid spy communica- munication. Hacking into (or tapping) com- tion. During the interwar years, both Ger- puter systems is now a prime means of man and French intelligence services both national and industrial espionage, developed radios that fit within suitcases as is encoded use of the Internet or digital (not easy in the days of bulky and fragile cell telephones. The National Security vacuum tube technology). A prime concern Agency is the leading American entity with such radios was ensuring sufficient focused on this problem today. On a far less transmission range—usually a few hundred sophisticated level, many so-called spy miles. Many allowed either code or voice shops sell various electronic devices usable messages. Code could be dangerous, as the in low-grade (usually interpersonal) spying hand one uses to transmit code varies by efforts. individual, making “radio fingerprinting” Christopher H. Sterling possible. And radio signals of any kind could See also Code Breaking; Communications always be monitored for content—and often Security (COMSEC); Computer Security transmitter location. With that concern in (COMPUSEC); Deception; National mind, easily portable and hidden radios were Security Agency (NSA); Radio Silence; central to Allied communication with resis- Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Solid State tance groups (as well as spies) behind Ger- Electronics; Transistor; Ultra; War on Terrorism man lines in occupied Europe. Many of these were made in separate sections (re ceiver, Sources power supply, transmitter, plus smaller parts Bamford, James. 2001. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of including the antenna, headphones, Morse the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from key, and microphone) to allow greater porta- the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New bility and ease of hiding. Postwar radios Century. New York: Doubleday. Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The Story of could fit into attaché cases. Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan. The post—World War II arrival of transis- Melton, H. Keith. 1996. “Clandestine Com - tors and later solid state electronics along munications.” In The Ultimate Spy Book, with extreme miniaturization allowed the 110–133. New York: DK Publishing.

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Polmar, Norman, and Thomas B. Allen. 1997. If the sequence of channel changes is not Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage. New known to potential adversaries, spread spec- York: Random House. trum signals are highly resistant to deliberate Pujol, Juan, with Nigel West. 1985. Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Agent of jamming. Military radios use cryptographic World War II. New York: Random House. techniques to generate the channel sequence under the control of a secret transmission security key that only the sender and receiver share. By itself, frequency hopping provides Spread Spectrum only limited protection against eavesdrop- ping, so military frequency-hopping radios Dating to a World War II innovation, spread often employ separate encryption devices. spectrum was a military communications U.S. military radios that use frequency hop- application for decades before the technol- ping include the Single Channel Ground and ogy became commercially available. Military Airborne Radio System. research at the Massachusetts Institute of The basic elements of spread spectrum Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, Mag- were declassified only in the 1980s, allowing navox, and Sylvania lead to the first spread the development of commercial applications. spectrum equipment in the early 1950s. Spread spectrum has been recently com- Sylvania-developed equipment, for example, bined with digital technology for spy-proof was used by the U.S. Navy during the Cuban and noise-resistant battlefield communica- Missile Crisis of 1962, about the time the tions. In civilian life, it is seen most often term “spread spectrum” (if not the classified in cordless phones and wireless local area technology) began to come into general use. networks. Parallel research on radar systems and a Christopher H. Sterling technologically similar concept called “phase coding” also had an impact on spread spec- See also Communications Security (COMSEC); trum development. Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Global Position- ing System (GPS); Jamming; Lamarr, Hedy Spread spectrum works by transmitting (1913–2000); Mobile Communications; signals that sound like electrical noise, Satellite Communications; SIGSALY; Single spread over (by rapid switching or hopping) Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System a wide band of frequencies. Indeed, signals (SINCGARS) are intentionally spread over a much wider band than the information they are carrying Sources Dixon, Robert C. 1994. Spread Spectrum Systems to make them more noiselike. Combined, with Commercial Applications. 3rd ed. New these two features make signals hard to York: Wiley-Interscience. detect, jam, or intercept and thus are invalu- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. able for military signaling. This technique 1982. Milcom ‘82: IEEE Military Communi- decreases the potential interference to other cations Conference—Progress in Spread receivers while achieving privacy. While Spectrum Communications. New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronic commercial spread spectrum systems use Engineers. bandwidths of 10 to 100 times the informa- Malik, R. 2001. “Spread Spectrum—Secret tion rates, military systems have used spec- Military Technology to 3G.” IEEE History trum widths from 10 to 1,000 times wider. Center. [Online article; retrieved June 2006.]

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http://www.ieee.org/organizations/ history after his arrival that Chief Signal Officer _center/cht_papers/SpreadSpectrum .pdf. Allen created an aeronautical division under the control of his office. Major Squier directed the board, which supervised the Squier, George Owen (1865–1934) Army’s trials of Wright brothers’ airplanes at Fort Myer, near Washington, in 1908–1909. George Squier served as the U.S. Army’s Squier drafted the Army’s original airplane Chief Signal Officer from 1917 to 1923 and specifications. was an active innovator of communications During a tour of duty from 1909 to 1911 at technology as well as military aviation. the National Bureau of Standards, Squier Squier was born in Dryden, Michigan, on experimented with the transmission of radio 21 March 1865. Though he completed only waves along wires, a technique he termed the eighth grade, after working for two “wired wireless.” According to this method, years, Squier entered West Point, graduating signals could be multiplexed (many verbal seventh in his class in 1887. He then attended messages could be sent simultaneously Johns Hopkins University and earned a doc- along the same wire) without the interrup- torate in electrical engineering in 1893. He tion of telephone traffic, part of the basis for entered the Army as an artillery officer and modern communications systems. Squier served in the Volunteer Signal Corps during also discovered that voice signals could be the Spanish-American War. In 1896, the city transmitted by radio along telephone lines. of Philadelphia, upon the recommendation He demonstrated his multiplex system for of the Franklin Institute, awarded Squier the Allen in September 1910. John Scott Legacy Medal for his polarizing After his 1912–1916 tour of duty as mili- photochronograph. In February 1899 he tary attaché to London, Lieutenant Colonel transferred to the Army Signal Corps and Squier headed the Signal Corps’ Aviation rose to major by 1903. With help from Lieu- Section. With Chief Signal Officer George tenant Colonel James Allen (chief signal offi- Scriven’s retirement in February 1917, Squier cer from 1906 to 1913), Squier developed a became the new chief and was promoted to wireless system initially used in April 1899. major general on 6 October 1917. With Amer- From 1900 to 1902, Squier commanded the ica’s entry into World War I, Squier managed cable ship USS Burnside during the laying of an expanding Signal Corps and its aeronau- the Philippine telegraph cable, which formed tical and radio programs. The corps made the basis for the communication net in the several advancements including airborne Philippine Islands. He also served as the radiotelephony, which made it easier for a superintendent of telegraph lines. pilot to communicate with the ground. In 1905, Squier became assistant comman- Squier worked with private industry to per- dant of the new Signal School at Fort Leav- fect radio tubes. These wartime efforts were enworth, Kansas. The inclusion of one basis for the development of radio aeronautics in the curriculum evidenced broadcasting in the 1920s. Squier’s own interest in aviation. He was Squier remained the Chief Signal Officer key to the Army Signal Corps’ early develop- until 31 December 1923. He was the inventor ments of an aeronautical program. In 1907 of the monophone for broadcasting over Squier transferred to Washington DC as telephone wires. In addition to his other assistant chief signal officer. It was not long inventions, he is credited with developing

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piped-in music, or what was soon dubbed he began to work for Henry O’Reilly, a “Muzak.” In 1919 he was named to the printer and pioneer in the building and oper- National Academy of Sciences. For his con- ating of telegraphs. He was placed in charge tributions to science, he received the Elliott of O’Reilly’s telegraph office at Lancaster, Cresson Gold Medal and the Franklin Medal Pennsylvania, in 1846. He later moved to from the Franklin Institute. General Squier Pittsburgh, and then Cincinnati, Ohio, where died at the age of sixty-nine in Washington he made several improvements in the con- DC on 24 March 1934. struction of batteries and the arrangement of Kathryn Roe Coker wires. In 1852 he was made general superin- See also Airplanes; Army Signal Corps; tendent of the principal lines in the American National Bureau of Standards (NBS), West at that time. After the initial consolida- National Institute of Standards and tion of the Western Union company in 1856, Technology (NIST); World War I Stager became general superintendent of operations. Sources With the inception of the American Civil Bache, Rene, 1911. “Many Talk on One Wire.” Technical World Magazine, March: 32–35. War early in 1861, Stager was appointed to Clark, Paul Wilson. 1974. “Major General manage the U.S. Military Telegraph in the George O. Squier: Military Scientist.” Ph.D. Department of Ohio (which included Indi- diss., Case Western Reserve University, ana and Illinois), reporting to General Cleveland. George McClellan. He soon organized mili- GeorgeSquier.com. “Who Was Major General tary and civilian telegraph lines into an effi- George O. Squier?” [Online article; retrieved April 2006.] http://georgesquier cient system. He also developed a field .com/george/. telegraph system to follow the Army, some- “Multiplex Telephony and Telegraphy by times moving upward of ten miles per day. Means of Electric Waves Guided by Wires.” Though he lacked any background in cryp- 1911. Proceedings of the American Institute of tography, Stager soon prepared a cipher by Electrical Engineers May: 857–862. Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the which he could safely communicate with Message Through: A Branch History of the US others who had the key (and such people Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Govern- were very few, one reason for the system’s ment Printing Office. success). Consisting of ten numbered cipher Squier, George O. 1933. Telling the World. systems, it was never broken during the war. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. When McClellan took over the Union Army in Virginia after the Battle of Bull Run, he appointed Stager to run his telegraph opera- Stager, Anson (1825–1885) tions. In November 1861, Stager became gen- eral superintendent of the U.S. Military Anson Stager directed military telegraphs Telegraph (which assumed emergency opera- for the Union during the American Civil War tion of commercial lines for the duration of the and played important management roles in war), reporting by January 1862 directly to Western Union and other firms. He also Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stager developed the first system of cryptography remained at this post until September 1868, formally adopted by the American military. continuing all the while to also serve as gen- Stager was born in Ontario County, New eral manager of Western Electric (in what York, on 20 April 1825. At the age of sixteen, today would be a clear conflict of interest).

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During the war, the system carried some 3,000 1945, when the Pentagon established the telegrams per day and constructed 15,000 9423rd Technical Services Unit, War Depart- miles of telegraph line, all of which was trans- ment Signal Center (Traffic Operations ferred to Western Union after the fighting Branch). It became the U.S. Army Command ceased. Stager’s unit operated in some com- and Administrative Communications Agency petition with the separate Army Signal Corps. in 1947, and the U.S. Army Communications In 1869 General Stager returned to Chicago, Agency (ACA) a decade later. On 1 April and, in addition to his duties as general super- 1962, ACA merged with the Army’s Signal intendent of the central region of the United Engineering Agency to form the U.S. Army States, he promoted related enterprises, Strategic Communications Command, which among them the Western Electric Company, would later become known as STRATCOM. the largest manufacturer of telegraph equip- The new agency took charge of all Army com- ment in the United States, of which he became munications engineering, installation, opera- president in 1872. He secured a consolidation tion, and maintenance. of the two telephone companies in Chicago The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) and became their president as well as heading revealed serious flaws in communications the Western Edison electric light company in between the State Department, American the same city. Stager died in Chicago on 26 embassies, and the Soviet Union. Post-crisis March 1885. analysis of communication delays confirmed Christopher H. Sterling a need for an upgrade of both interdepart- See also American Civil War (1861–1865); Army mental and international communication Signal Corps; Code Breaking; Telegraph; U.S. capabilities. As a result, President John Military Telegraph Service (USMTS) Kennedy ordered creation of the National Communications System, and STRATCOM Sources became its Army element. STRATCOM’s Plum, William R. 1882. The Military Telegraph roles soon included (1) management of strate- During the Civil War in the United States. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg (reprinted by Arno gic mobile communications, fixed signal Press, 1974). communications, the Military Affiliate Radio Romano, Kevin. “The Stager Ciphers and the System, frequency interference resolution, U.S. Military’s First Cryptographic System.” and communications equipment research [Online article; retrieved October 2004.] and development; (2) worldwide test and http://www.gordon.army.mil/AC/Wntr02/ evaluation, maintenance planning, and stager.htm. Thompson, Robert Luther. 1947. Wiring a development of engineering for plant and Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry equipment; (3) acquisition management of in the United States 1832–1866. Princeton, NJ: automatic data processing equipment for Princeton University Press. Army use; and (4) supervision of transporta- tion and traffic management of the signal field command. Strategic Communications On 1 March 1964, the Army established Command (STRATCOM) the Office of the Chief of Communications- Electronics and discontinued the century- Operational from 1962 to the late 1970s, the old post of chief signal officer. At the same U.S. Army’s Strategic Communications Com - time, STRATCOM achieved major Army mand’s (STRATCOM) origins date to early command status with full control of world-

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wide strategic communications. It expanded Communicating with submarines at sea has with creation of STRATCOM-Europe in July always presented special problems. As sub- 1964 and STRATCOM-Pacific in September marine capabilities improved after the mid- 1964 (adding facilities in Hawaii, Vietnam, 1950s thanks to nuclear power, the vessels Okinawa, Taiwan, and Thailand in Nov - could stay deeply submerged for extended ember). STRATCOM’s growing role in Viet- periods, making detection of their location nam led to formation of the 1st Signal nearly impossible. But if they had to rise to Brigade in 1966, which controlled all Army the surface for communication, much of that communications-electronics resources in capability disappeared. Southeast Asia. Scattered across 200 sites in During World Wars I and II, the only way Vietnam and Thailand, it became the largest a submarine could communicate with its combat signal unit ever formed. home base was to surface in order to use STRATCOM headquarters moved from shortwave or other radio signaling. This Washington DC to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, made the vessels vulnerable, and after the in 1967. In 1973, STRATCOM took responsi- British broke the German Enigma codes, bility for all communications systems at Army many submarines were located (and some installations, including telephone, telecom- sunk) through their regular signaling process. munications centers, nontactical radio opera- After the war, though submarines improved, tions, television distribution, and public means of signaling from a land base through address systems. As the war increasingly deep water remained impossible. blurred the distinction between strategic and In the late 1950s, to resolve the submarine tactical communications, STRATCOM be- problem, the Navy proposed an extremely came the U.S. Army Communications Com- low frequency (ELF) antenna system, which mand in 1973 and later the U.S. Army would face strong opposition throughout its Network Enterprise Technology Command. proposal and development and into its Christopher H. Sterling operational stages. The Navy first became See also Army Signal Corps; Cuban Missile interested in ELF signals in 1958 when it was Crisis (1962); Defense Communications discovered that low-frequency radio waves Agency (DCA, 1960–1991); Military Affiliate could penetrate seawater deep enough to Radio System (MARS); National Communi- send one-way signals to submerged sub- cations System (NCS); Network Enterprise marines. Tests in the early 1960s proved the Technology Command (NETCOM); idea to be practical. The original project Spectrum Management; Vietnam War (1959–1975) would have required a grid of cables over 22,500 square miles of northern Wisconsin Source and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (an GlobalSecurity.org. 2005. “Network Command area larger than Belgium and Holland com- History.” [Online information; retrieved De - cember 2006.] http://www.global bined), as well as 240 transmitters and 800 security.org/military/agency/army/ megawatts of power, and would have cost netcom-history.htm. billions of dollars to build. In 1969, a more modest replacement, “Project Seafarer,” was proposed, relying on newer technology to Submarine Communications eliminate the need for such a huge grid. But with both projects, concern over potential harmful effects on fish, birds, and animals, as

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well as delayed effects on humans, was at quencies had made use of the huge ELF the heart of concerted public opposition. antenna no longer necessary. In the end, the further downsized $400- Christopher H. Sterling million “Project ELF” became operational in See also Communication Satellites; Spectrum October 1989, consisting of just two transmit- Frequencies ters in Wisconsin and Michigan, connected Sources by a 165-mile underground cable. Operated Aldridge, Bob. 2001. “ELF History: Extreme for twenty-four hours a day, each transmitter Low Frequency Communication.” Santa consisted of a 14-mile-long antenna strung Clara, CA: Pacific Life Research Center. on hundreds of 40-foot poles across dozens Jacobsen, Trond. “ZEVS, the Russian 82 Hz ELF of miles of forest. Annual operating costs for Transmitter: A[n] Extrem[e] Low Frequency Transmission System.” [Online article; both ELF transmitters was $13 million. Con- retrieved April 2006.] http://www.vlf sideration was given to a mobile ELF system .it/zevs/zevs.htm. (using trucks on land or balloons in the air to Merrill, John. 2003. A History of Extremely avoid enemy attack), but cost precluded Low Frequency (ELF) Submarine Radio implementation. The Soviet Navy developed Communications. Southington, CT: a similar system, called the ZEVS, located on Publishing Directions. Navy Extremely Low Frequency Communica- the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk. It was tions System Facilities Closure. 2004. [Online first detected in the 1990s and, unlike the information; retrieved April 2006.] American system, is also used for geophys- http://www.navyspace.navy.mil/home/elf ical research. The British Royal Navy also /overview/pdf. considered building such a system in Scot- “The Wireless Equipped Sub marine.” 1916. Wireless Age III (9): 605–616. land, but decided against it given the high cost. As is evident from the huge size of the Suez Crisis (1956) ground antennas used, the ELF communica- tion link was obviously one way. Further, The Suez Crisis was generated by Egyptian on such low frequency, information can only nationalization of the Suez Canal on 26 July be transmitted very slowly, on the order of a 1956. The Egyptian takeover of this Anglo- few characters per minute. Although the French–owned canal brought both Britain actual codes used were secret, the transmis- and France into a conflict with President sions could be received all over the world. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egyptian Republic. Naturally, when a submarine is on the sur- With the failure of diplomacy, Britain and face, it can use ordinary radio communica- France undertook a combined military oper- tions. Today, this usually means use of ation, in concert with an Israeli invasion, to dedicated military communication satellites reassert control over the canal. Communica- (the U.S. Navy calls its system Submarine tion problems were a central part of the Satellite Information Exchange Sub-System). resulting campaign. The Navy’s ELF system was closed in Sep- In 1952, Nasser and others overthrew tember 2004, the official explanation being Egypt’s King Farouk and quickly moved to that technological progress in very low fre- establish an Arab republic. Their new policy normalized relations with Communist China

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and sought military equipment from Soviet- tion, the adding of ships to the invasion fleet bloc nations. These actions led Britain and overwhelmed the transmission of messages France to withdraw support from Nasser’s to the Tyne, and the Royal Navy switched Aswan Dam construction project on the Nile back to its tested capability with Morse code. River, jeopardizing its completion. At the Unfortunately, use of code extended the time same time, Egypt and Israel were fighting an for message translation. undeclared border war. In July 1956, Nasser On 29 October 1956, Israeli forces launched ordered nationalization of the Suez Canal in their attacks into Egypt and the Gaza Strip, an effort to use its revenues to fund the driving toward the Canal Zone. On 5 Novem- Aswan Dam project. Britain and France ber, Allied airborne battalions made landings decided to use military force to retake the within Port Said and quickly secured the canal. To ensure success, they agreed to act in canal zone. French airborne troops used a cir- concert with Israel, which would invade the cling aircraft as a communications center to Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula. An direct naval support and reinforcements to Anglo-French force would use that attack as deal with Egyptian attacks. By the next day, an excuse to invade the Port Said Canal Zone British land forces had reinforced the para- by sea and air in what became known as troopers within the zone. Within several days, Operation Musketeer Revised. however, U.S. and U.N. diplomats established Command and control of the operation a ceasefire and by March 1957 Allied and initially was to be aboard the HMS Tyne, Israeli forces had evacuated the canal zone which was to handle communications of and the Sinai Peninsula. both air and sea elements of the invasion William H. Brown force. The French decided to equip another See also Combat Information Center (CIC); ship to provide an additional communica- Egypt; Flagship; France: Navy (Marine tion platform for the invasion force and Nationale); Israel; Korean War (1950–1953); chose the Gustave-Zede, a French naval stores Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); United vessel. That vessel was fitted with additional Kingdom: Royal Navy aerials and carried radio trucks to increase Sources communications capacity from ship to shore. Beaufre, Andre. 1969. The Suez Expedition 1956. The Royal Navy was in the process of New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Bowie, Robert R. 1974. Suez 1956. London: converting from TYPEX to KL7 for coding Oxford University Press. messages, and the Suez operation was the Dayan, Moshe. 1965. Diary of the Sinai Campaign. first campaign in which its wireless operators New York: Harper & Row. were using this new system. Despite success Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn. 1987. Cutting in working with United Nations allies in the Lion’s Tail: Suez Through Egyptian Eyes. Korea, the British had difficulty in coordi- New York: Arbor House. Lucas, W. Scott. 1996. Britain and Suez: The Lion’s nating their communications with the French Last Roar. Manchester, UK: Manchester warships participating in the Suez operation. University Press. The French armed forces were a late entry into the North American Treaty Organization armed forces, and their communications “System of Systems” were at odds with the Royal Navy. In addi-

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The “system of systems” is one of the most vice-oriented structures are slowly being popular concepts associated with the Amer- replaced by interservice cooperation. This ican Information Revolution in Military need for “jointness” is one of the most Affairs (IRMA). It was proposed in the mid- demanding aspects of the IRMA. Decisions 1990s by Admiral William A. Owens, then based on a near real-time situation aware- vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ness have to be made quickly and thus often The system of systems concept integrates by lower levels of command. Operations three elements: (1) sensors, satellites, radars, under the system of systems cannot be and remote acoustic devices; (2) computer strictly preplanned, as they must adapt to and communication systems; and (3) mod- changing battlefield conditions with a much ern precision-guided weapons. It merges greater flexibility than before. such capabilities as command and control, The system of systems concept exploits surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence, John Boyd’s “OODA [observe, orient, de - and targeting. cide, and act] loop,” which offers a universal In such a military architecture, individual logic of conflict. The one who is able to carry units are incorporated into a powerful joint out the whole cycle quicker and more effec- war-fighting structure. New technologies tively wins. Admiral Owens’ system of sys- allow one to gather, process, store, and trans- tems promises the U.S. military to gain mit an enormous amount of information. unchallenged superiority in the OODA loop The Army, with its superiority in informa- and thus to win both battles and wars. Like tion revolution technology, knows more (and many addicted proponents of IRMA, Owens more rapidly) about its enemy and the announced the end of one of Karl von potential battlefield. Dramatic improve- Clausewitz’s dictums: The U.S. system of ments in military communication systems systems would lift the “fog of war” by mak- made possible a real-time knowledge, which ing it predictable and fully plannable due to produces a situation awareness or a “domi- American information and communication nant battle knowledge.” One can know supremacy. The idea that new information almost everything about the movements of and communication technologies could an enemy, and thus have the ability to pre- eliminate the effect of friction and fog dict and counteract that enemy’s actions. (chance and uncertainty) in war is naturally Such a system of systems allows the modern debatable. army not only to locate, fix, and destroy mil- Reliance on the system of systems archi- itary targets but to do so from a distance. tecture of computers, communications, and Building a system of systems, understood precision-guided weapons, however, could to include the integration of sensors, high- create its own source of vulnerability and tech weapons systems, and command, be- friction. Information noise (the problem of came the goal of the American military, identifying valuable information within the explicitly expressed in Joint Vision 2010 (1996) vast flow of superfluous data), information and Quadrennial Defense Review (1997). Addi- overload, and the ever-present threat of tem- tionally, the system of systems concept peramental electronic systems might serve as requires integration of all military services a source of friction and confusion in the and their full cooperation. Traditional ser- twenty-first-century battlefield.

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Łukasz Kamie ski Nye, J. S., and William A. Owens. 1996. “America’s Information Edge.” Foreign See also Communication Satellites; Computer; Affairs 75 (2): 20–35. Global Command and Control System Owens, William A. 1996. “The Emerging U.S. (GCCS); Information Revolution in Military System-of-Systems.” [Online article; Affairs (IRMA); Internet; Signals Intelligence retrieved September 2005.] http://www (SIGINT) .ndu.edu/inss/strforum/SF_63/forum63 .html. Sources Owens, William A. 2001. Lifting the Fog of War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Talk Between Ships (TBS) (1907–1909). With that the Navy abandoned serious efforts to adopt voice radio until The talk between ships (TBS) transceiver was World War I. a line-of-sight voice radio employed by the By then, radio experts in the Navy’s Bureau U.S. Navy for ship-to-ship communications of Steam Engineering had concluded that during World War II. the vacuum tube offered a superior alterna- The Navy’s interest in radio dated to 1899, tive to the arc. In March 1917, the bureau when Secretary of the Navy John Long made ordered several vacuum tube radio-telephone arrangements for officers to observe Gugli- transceivers from Western Electric. Testing elmo Marconi’s wireless reporting of the confirmed their suitability for shipboard use, America’s Cup yacht races. They reported and during the war the Navy ordered more favorably on Marconi’s apparatus, but the than a thousand sets. This equipment pro- Navy waited until 1902 to purchase its first vided the service with its first reliable system spark sets for sending code. Voice communi- of ship-to-ship voice communications and cation was not possible with these early sets served as standard equipment for more than because they produced damped waves. a decade. As a high frequency system, how- The service purchased its first voice radios ever, messages often could be intercepted in late 1907. Inventor Lee de Forest had hundreds of miles away. One solution to this developed a working radio-telephone sys- problem was radio equipment that could tem earlier that year by utilizing arc trans- operate at a higher frequency, as very high mission to generate continuous (undamped) frequencies propagate along a line of sight waves. Though the Navy bought more than and the earth’s curvature limits the maxi- two dozen sets from de Forest, production mum range between transmitter and re- problems and an overly aggressive installa- ceiver. The Naval Research Laboratory tion schedule led to poor performance dur- (NRL) began experimenting with very high ing the world cruise of the Great White Fleet frequency equipment in 1929, but due to

437

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technical difficulties and limited funding, Gebhard, Louis A. 1979. Evolution of Naval most of the fleet did not receive operational Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval sets until 1936. Research Laboratory. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. These first-generation line-of-sight voice Howeth, Linwood S. 1963. History of Communi- radios had a maximum operating frequency cations-Electronics in the United States Navy. of 60 MHz, but fleet personnel asked for Washington, DC: Government Printing equipment that could transmit and receive at Office. still higher frequencies. In 1939, the Navy’s shore establishment met this request by introducing the TBS radio transceiver. Devel- Tannenberg, Battle of (1914) oped by NRL and manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America, the new Perhaps no other battle of the early twentieth transceivers had a frequency range of 60 to century illustrates the importance of com- 80 MHz and provided American naval offi- munications planning, supply, and opera- cers with an extremely reliable means of tions in modern warfare better than the short-range tactical communication. By 1941 Battle of Tannenberg. A key opening battle of the Navy had installed TBS on most war- World War I, it was fought on the Eastern ships, and it served as the fleet’s primary front 26–30 August 1914. system of tactical ship-to-ship communica- In accordance with prewar mobilization tions throughout World War II. The system plans, the Russian First and Second armies proved especially valuable during amphibi- advanced toward East Prussia to defeat the ous landing and convoy operations. German Eighth Army. The Russian advance Although TBS was simply the alphabetic had to consider an enormous swamp known designation for the new equipment (other as the Masurian Lakes, which divided Rus- contemporary naval radios included models sia’s armies as they sought to outflank the such as the TBM and TCZ), sailors soon began Germans. The lakes effectively cut off lateral referring to it as “Talk Between Ships.” The communication between the Russian armies. moniker quickly stuck. TBS remained in ser- In addition, their Northwest Front comman- vice with the U.S. Navy until the mid-1950s, der failed to assign either army to maintain when it was replaced by more advanced communications and ordered each to higher frequency systems. advance separately, resulting in a 60-mile Timothy Wolters gap between them. See also de Forest (1873–1961), Lee; Naval The Russians had failed to plan for com- Research Laboratory (NRL); Radio; Spectrum munications at any level. Signal communica- Frequencies; U.S. Navy; World War I; World tion was primarily a function of Russian War II engineers. Telegraph companies were trained Sources and equipped to install and maintain tele- Aitken, Hugh G. J. 1985. The Continuous Wave: graph lines and also had some telephone Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932. equipment. Independent telegraph compa- Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Douglas, Susan. 1987. Inventing American nies assigned to army corps had a limited Broadcasting, 1899–1922. Baltimore: Johns supply of wire. Field radio stations were also Hopkins University Press. at corps and army headquarters but had

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only limited mobility for equipment that had On 28 August, von Hindenburg ordered a maximum range of about 100 miles. an attack on the Russian center while his Shortly after First Army began the ad - other units moved to outflank the Russian vance, it outran its wire communication and Second Army. On 29 August the Russians resorted to sending orders by radio. The tried to withdraw from the encirclement, but messages were sent without encryption, due their retreat soon became a rout. By 30 to Russian fear of using codes that could not August the Russian army had disintegrated be deciphered by the intended recipient, a into small groups of men escaping to the fear greater than the risk of the Germans rear, having suffered more than 50,000 casu- intercepting the signal. This calculated risk alties with another 90,000 captured by the failed as the Germans easily intercepted the Germans. The Russian commander, who had transmissions and used the information to become lost in the woods, committed sui- win a minor engagement. After the Russians cide. The First Russian Army would meet a inflicted a local defeat on the Germans at similar fate at the Battle of the Masurian Gumbinnen and the Russian Second Army Lakes in early September. crossed into Prussia, however, the German Tannenberg illustrates the importance of commander was replaced by Paul von proper signal planning for large operations. Hindenburg. His chief of staff, Erich Luden- Russian command and control suffered from dorff, quickly developed a plan to counterat- poor leadership, lack of secrecy, inadequate tack the Second Army. At the same time, one prewar planning, and inadequate supplies of Russian general moved his army to the left signal equipment, such as wire. Frequent while another issued orders for it to move moves of unit headquarters disrupted the toward the First Army on the right. Second wired systems, which forced the use of radio Army’s wire supply had also run out, and it signaling using open channels. The open sig- resorted to sending uncoded radio transmis- naling permitted the Germans to fully sions. understand Russian plans, with fatal results The Battle of Tannenberg began on 26 for the latter. August with a coordinated German attack Steven J. Rauch on the Russian Second Army that had See also Germany: Army; Russia/Soviet Union: devolved into separate corps (due to difficult Army; World War I terrain) that could not communicate with each other or headquarters. This total Sources absence of lateral signal communication Ingles, Harry C. 1929. “Tannenberg—A Study in between Russian corps commanders made Faulty Signal Communication.” The Signal Corps Bulletin 49 (July–August): 1–14. them ignorant of what was happening on Showalter, Dennis. 1991. Tannenberg: Clash of their flanks. By the evening of 27 August, the Empires. Hamden, CT: Archon Books. German attack had broken both the right and left flanks of the Second Army, and the Russian commander did not know where TELCOM Mobile Wireless Units his corps command posts were located. The breakdown of the brittle Russian signal sys- Cable and Wireless Limited, a British world- tem deprived him of vital information. wide telecommunications company, sent a

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mobile wireless assembly (MWA) to Algiers providing operational and administrative in 1942, which was composed of five vans communications duties and carrying to and and a trailer manned by nine operators and from the forward areas messages for govern- three engineers. Known as the “Blue Train,” ment departments and the press. Expedi- the MWA operated during the remainder of tionary force messages were also handled the British campaign in North Africa in by TELCOM. These were sent between the World War II and was then attached to the troops and their families at home. public relations office of the British army for Cliff Lord the invasion of southern Italy in late 1943. See also Golden Arrow Sections; Mobile During the fighting in North Africa and Communications; United Kingdom: Royal the early stages of the Italian campaigns, Corps of Signals; Vehicles and Transport Cable and Wireless staff suffered the shared risks, discomforts, and frustrations of ser- Sources Bairstow, J. P. 1994. East of Colombo 1945–1949: A vicemen in the field but without any formal Record of the Cable and Wireless Ltd claim to the support of the armed services Australasian Telegraph Operator Classes of ’44 with whom they worked in close association. and the TELCOM Teams in Which They Served. While the acquisition of food and accommo- Padbury, Australia: J. P. Bairstow. dation presented the MWA staff with partic- Graves, Charles. 1946. The Thin Red Lines. London: Standard Art Book. ular problems, as civilians in plain clothes, Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal they faced the greater and very real risk of Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps being treated as irregular soldiers if taken (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: prisoner by the enemy. Helion. To rectify this situation, Cable and Wire- less proposed to the army that those of their staff who were working in forward areas be Telegraph enrolled in a uniformed organization sup- ported by the services. The status of the TEL- Electric or line telegraphy was quickly rec- COM personnel was the same as for war ognized as a breakthrough technology for correspondents. No provision was made in military communicators. Its application, be- the TELCOM charter concerning rank, and ginning in the 1850s, transformed command- the personnel did not wear rank insignia, and-control functions for land warfare, and its although it was generally accepted that tactical and strategic use carried through senior operators were equivalent to lieu- more than a half-century before being tenants, managers to captains, and divisional replaced by newer technologies. managers to lieutenant-colonels. While the first workable telegraph was TELCOM, as a new noncombatant force, developed by Francis Ronalds in 1816, the wearing its own uniform but unarmed, first practical system that saw active use was joined the British Empire’s forces in overseas the needle telegraph developed by William theaters of war for the assault on Europe F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, which and the Far East. They saw service in Ceylon, was adopted by the expanding British rail- Burma, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, and way systems. Many others also experi- Hong Kong. They assisted the services by mented with telegraph ideas. Samuel F. B.

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Morse first began to develop his telegraph ish) territory. An extensive Russian electric system in the early 1830s. He demonstrated telegraph system, completed by the German a working model late in 1835 and focused firm of Siemens & Halske in 1855, provided full time on developing his new invention by a vital link from north of St. Petersburg (then 1837. By 1838 Morse and Alfred Vail had the capital) through Moscow and south to worked out the basics of what became Sevastopol on the Black Sea (site of a long known as Morse code to simplify and thus siege) as well as east to Warsaw. On the other speed up the sending of messages. Granted side, British Royal Engineers built and oper- a patent in 1840, Morse also sought patent ated 21 miles of Wheatstone single needle protection in several European nations. After telegraph line between British headquarters Congress underwrote the costs of his initial at Balaclava and French headquarters in line between Washington DC and Baltimore, Kamiesch. It was subject to constant battle commercial operators dominated the ser- damage and only marginally useful. In 1855, vice’s subsequent development. a private firm under military direction con- Europe took a different path in that gov- structed an underwater cable of 340 miles ernments generally built and operated most (by far the longest ever constructed to that telegraph systems. The French, building on point) to connect Balaclava across the Black their use of the Chappe mechanical sema- Sea with Varna in present-day Bulgaria (and phore system, were building their first elec- then connecting with existing continental tric telegraph line by 1845 and restricting it to telegraph lines). It lasted only eight months government (and military) use. Military use due to its fragility. Commanders in the field also dominated the first Prussian state tele- were for the first time interfered with (they graph in 1847. Many other European nations felt) by constant questions and suggestions followed suit. British telegraph services were (and sometimes orders) from distant military originally shared between commercial (the headquarters in London and Paris. new railways) and government/military During the American Civil War (1861– needs. The first British colonial telegraph 1865), telegraphy proved vital given the lines were being constructed in India by need to manage large armies spread over a 1848. By the time of the Sepoy Indian Mutiny wide geographic area. As the war began, a decade later, those telegraph lines were civilian telegraph networks were wide- vital to warn British outposts (from head- spread (primarily in the north), but military quarters in Delhi) that the uprising had experience with the service was limited. The begun. In addition to a spreading network of Confederacy established its own telegraph stationary lines, special telegraph circuits arm in 1862. The Union took over the com- were built to support the armies on the mercial operators early in 1862 and also move. During the siege of Lucknow, a tele- established the U.S. Military Telegraph, graph line was built to more rapidly commu- which was staffed by civilians and soon nicate with headquarters. developed mobile field units using specially The first military test of telegraphy, how- designed wagons (“telegraph trains”) to ever, came during the Crimean War (1854– keep up with shifting armies. The Beardslee 1856), in which Britain and France sought to telegraph system was widely used, though stop Russian expansion into Ottoman (Turk- with varying results, as was telegraphy from

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This American Civil War engraving shows signals personnel laying a “flying telegraph” line during combat. Such telegraph services could be moved with armies, keeping commanders in touch with frontline conditions. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) tethered observation balloons. President Brigade as well as a school to train telegra- Abraham Lincoln maintained close touch phers in 1868. Likewise, Prussia benefited with his commanders through the War from its effective use of telegraphy in the Department telegraph office next to the several wars leading to German unification. White House. To protect their communica- The Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) saw tions, both sides resorted to coding mes- Germany utilizing both military and civil sages—and trying to read the enemy’s telegraph systems, as well as lines captured messages. More than 300 telegraph operators from the French. Germany formed special died from disease or battle injuries. telegraph companies for fighting army units, In a war between France and Austria in and its aggressive laying of tactical lines the early 1860s, both armies made tactical sometimes preceded military actions. The use of telegraphy and often attacked the first separate British telegraph troop was other side’s communication lines. Growing established in the Royal Corps of Engineers out of its success in rapidly laying field tele- in 1870. British and colonial forces slowly graph lines, France established the Telegraph perfected pack animal transport to carry

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needed telegraph equipment. Telegraph along special communication trenches. units also served to link British forces during High-speed Morse operations were intro- operations in China (1900) and Tibet (1904). duced during the war, speeding up message Telegraphs were widely used in British transmission. colonial areas in Africa, where logistical Telegraphy as a military service finally problems arising from both limited experi- gave way to other technologies during and ence and the hot and wet climate compli- after World War II. Having reached its peak cated military campaigns. Royal Engineer application about 1930 (in terms of telegrams telegraph units supported many of these sent and Western Union employment), the actions from the 1860s to the turn of the commercial business had gone into a steady twentieth century. For the Egyptian cam- decline. Growing use of wireless telegraphy paign, victory was telegraphed directly from and expansion of telephone, telex, and the battlefield to London for the first time. teleprinter networks in the 1920s and 1930s British forces also made extensive use of removed much of the need for line telegraph the telegraph during the Boer War (1899– services dedicated to military use. Later fax 1902), although this introduced a new draw- technology, let alone the Internet and e-mail, back when the Boers tapped British lines to marked the final demise of a once-dominant intercept messages. The British commander service. responded by trying to deceive his enemy Christopher H. Sterling with false troop movement messages sent in the clear. Cable carts traveled with the troops, See also Army Signal Corps; Beardslee enabling rapid connection with headquar- Telegraph; Confederate Army Signal ters. Railways were protected by a series of Corps; Facsimile/Fax; Field Wire and Cable; High-Speed Morse; Morse Code; blockhouses and armored trains connected Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872); Sema- by telegraph. Several thousand miles of tele- phore (Mechanical Telegraphs); Stager, graph line were installed during the conflict, Anson (1825–1885); Teleprinter/Teletype; much of it along railway rights of way. Undersea Cables; United Kingdom: Royal During World War I, military telegraph Corps of Signals; U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS) services were active within all the fighting powers and civilian/commercial networks were widely applied to military needs. Teleg- Sources raphers (not yet part of the British signal Bauchamp, Ken. 2001. “Military Telegraphy.” arm, they operated as a part of the Royal In History of Telegraphy, chap. 4. London: Engineers until 1920) began to take prece- Institution of Electrical Engineers. Marland, E. A. 1964. Early Electrical Communica- dence. Wire lines for telegraphy (and tele- tion. London: Abelard-Schuman. phony) had to be either strung or buried. Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: That was best done along roadways, but as A History of Its Antecedents and Development, opposing forces often shelled roads to inter- chaps. 2, 3. London: Royal Signals dict communications, handcarts were used Association. Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the to string wire cross-country. Wire strung Message Through: A Branch History of the from poles could all too easily be cut by rifle US Army Signal Corps, chaps, 1–3, 5. or shell fire. Along front lines, wire had to be Washington, DC: Government Printing laid, buried if conditions permitted, or run Office.

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Scheips, Paul J., ed. 1980. Military Signal as the prime means of communication for Communications. 2 vols. New York: Arno messages that did not require a physical Press. copy between Fort Whipple (now Fort Myer) in Virginia and the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington DC. Some Telephone experimental telephone links were also established at sea coast defense facilities for The telephone was adopted for military use fire control. Questions of equipment weight more slowly than the telegraph. There were and portability dominated early Army con- several reasons for this—for example, the cerns with telephone use—as did the often telephone left no physical record of a mes- poor voice quality provided. sage as the telegraph provided, and until The first experimental U.S. Army field tele- World War I, telephone signals could be sent phone appeared in 1889 but proved too only a limited distance, far less than the tele- expensive to manufacture in large numbers. graph. On the other hand, the telephone In the meantime, Siemens & Halske of Ger- could be easily used by any personnel (no many were making a field telephone with a need for a crew of trained specialists), allowed drum of cable that could be rapidly deployed. for faster transmission of longer messages Telephone wire was soon converted from iron without the use of code, and encouraged two- to copper and several weights were tried. Fol- way communication. The telephone was lowing telegraph procedure and precedents, used first in military headquarters, as appli- both man-carried and horse-borne means of cation in the field called for lighter and laying wire in the field were developed. Hand portable equipment, which took some time generator and battery systems were both to develop. used, the former in combat conditions, the As early as 1877, just a year after Alexan- latter on individual posts. der Graham Bell’s telephone invention, Eng- British headquarters were making active lish telegraph engineer W. H. Preece, in a use of telephones during the Boer War (1899– talk to British engineer officers, predicted 1902). Some were using commandeered civil- military use of the instrument. But he also ian equipment, but the first purpose-designed noted its drawbacks for military use— military telephones were also being used. Tele- fragility and susceptibility to interference, phones were found in major British and for example. At the same time, he suggested American fortifications, among those of other that a telephone could transmit the actual nations. During the Spanish-American War, words of command as well as the tones of the Army Signal Corps established telephone voice. He concluded that such an apparatus networks within bases and headquarters, and would be valuable for military purposes. between President William McKinley and his The telephone saw occasional use over short secretaries of war and navy in Washington distances in Britain’s African colonial cam- DC and Tampa, Florida, the main port used to paigns and siege operations, as well as in support American forces. After fighting India, in the late 1870s and into the 1880s. ceased, the Signal Corps built Cuba’s first tele- The U.S. Army Signal Corps installed its phone network. first experimental telephone line in 1878. When the British War Office moved to Soon thereafter the telephone was adopted Whitehall in 1906, the building included a

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400-line telephone switchboard. Switch- boards were constantly improved to add capacity and flexibility. In the American West, telegraph lines that had once con- nected military posts began to give way to telephone networks. Telephone lines were also built to connect General John J. Persh- ing’s Mexican Punitive Expedition head- quarters back to his American base in New Mexico. By World War I, the telephone had come into widespread military use. French civilian telephone networks were initially pressed into use, but demand quickly surpassed their capacity. Telephone repeaters allowed for service over longer distances and for thinner (and lighter) lines. Static trench warfare on the Western Front favored use of telephones if their connecting lines could be buried deep enough, and often they were not. Massive An American army officer makes a telephone call on artillery barrages by both sides repeatedly the Western Front in 1918. The telephone proved a tore up enemy line communications. The significant, if unreliable, mode of communication other important problem was security, and during World War I, but was vastly improved in the two decades before World War II. (National Archives) listening by induction to enemy telephone signals was widespread by 1915. For subse- quent field operations, British (and later 1917. A huge dedicated network of 20,000 American) forces used a combined buzzer miles of wire served both telegraph and tele- and telephone set, of which the British phone networks in France. Fullerphone was perhaps best known (the Telephones also proved invaluable for U.S. equivalent was the EE-1). onboard communication in both British and The British Post Office manufactured more German airships (where crew members were than 40,000 “trench” telephones that were often widely separated from one another), used on all fronts, linked by manual switch- though equipment had to be airtight (to boards. The U.S. Army standardized the use reduce the danger of fire), as light as possible, of a field telephone housed in a wooden case and resistant to vibration. Telephones were and an improved version based largely on also used to connect artillery spotters in teth- commercial equipment and thus available ered balloons with their ground controllers. for rapid and relatively inexpensive mass European fortifications constructed before production. Dedicated telephone links were and during World War II made extensive use soon established between Allied headquar- of internal telephone communications. Ger- ters and both London and Paris, and a cadre man fortifications along the border and later of some 200 “Hello Girls” operated the the Atlantic Wall were connected by tele- American switchboards at Chaumont after phone by deeply buried telephone cables, as

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well as telephone links between the outside part of the military background—presumed and the inside of a given structure (speaking to be always available and ready. The funda- tubes were installed in many of the works in mental technical change has been a steady case of failure of the telephone system). The progression from analog to digital technol- French Maginot Line was similarly equipped. ogy in switching and transmission. During World War II, telephones carried Christopher H. Sterling two-thirds of communications within the See also American Telephone & Telegraph Co. United States and some overseas sites (teleg- (AT&T); Atlantic Wall; Automatic Secure raphy remained the more secure long- Voice Communication (AUTOSEVOCOM); distance communication mode). In combat Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922); Bell theaters, alternative routing helped to ensure Telephone Laboratories (BTL); Britain, Battle communications continuity. Switchboards, of (1940); Coast Defense; Fuller phone; Hello Girls; Maginot Line; Mexican Punitive however, had changed little since World War Expedition (1916–1917); Mobile Communica- I. Britain’s Fighter Command connected its tions; SIGSALY; Spanish-American War more than forty key airfields and radar instal- (1898); Telegraph; Underground Communi- lations during the Battle of Britain with an cation Centers; Undersea Cables; World extensive dedicated telephone network, mak- War I; World War II ing use of duplicate facilities where possible Sources to allow continued connectivity even with Beck, George I. 1928. “The Telephone: Commer- battle damage. German and Japanese forces cial v. Military History and Development.” made extensive use of telephone services, Signal Corps Bulletin 42 (March): 1–17. though the latter’s extensive water-separated Beresford. C. F. C. 1892. “The Telephone at holdings made radio more valuable. Security Home and in the Field.” Journal of the Royal was of concern, as with any voice-based sys- United Service Institution 36 (170): 347–368. Fagan, M. D., ed. 1978. A History of Engineering tem, leading to many ingenious means of and Science in the Bell System: National Service coding messages, of which the SIGSALY sys- in War and Peace (1925–1975). New York: Bell tem was perhaps the most advanced. Telephone Laboratories, Inc. The standard American field equipment Fay, Frank H. 1927. “A.E.F. Telephone and during the war was the EE-8 portable field Telegraph System.” Military Signal Communi- cations I (May): 10–21. telephone, which (with battery) weighed Insulator Collectors on the Net. “Military about 10 pounds and could send a signal Phones.” [Online information; retrieved from 11 to 17 miles, depending on condi- April 2006.] http://www.myinsulators tions. It came in a leather (later canvas and, .com/commokid/telephones/military by 1967, nylon) bag and remained in use phones.htm. through the Vietnam War. The rugged, Lavine, A. Lincoln. 1921. Circuits of Victory. Garden City, NY: Country Life Press. lighter-weight, and smaller telephone set Olive-Drab.com. “Military Telephones: EE-8 TA-312/PT, which entered service in the Field Phone.” [Online information; retrieved 1950s, was the main successor to the EE-8, April 2006.] http://www.olive-drab.com/ though both were used interchangeably for od_electronics_ee8.php. decades. The newer unit could also be hand Povey, P. J., and R. A. J. Earl. 1988. “First World War and Post-War Telephones.” In Vintage cranked. Later equipment featured small Telephones of the World, 140–152. London: push-button number pads. Peter Peregrinus and the Science Museum. By the late twentieth century, telephone Preece, W. H. 1878. “The Telephone and Its links were so common as to have become Application to Military and Naval

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Purposes.” Journal of the Royal United Service to fade from use when newer facilities, Institution 22 (January): 209–216. including facsimile, and later the Internet, Scheips, Paul J., ed. 1980. Military Signal better filled military needs. Communication, vol. II. New York: Arno Press. A teletype, or teleprinter/teletypewriter, is a now-obsolete electromechanical typewriter that communicates messages/signals from Teleprinter/Teletype one point to another through a simple elec- trical communications channel, line, or wire- For much of the twentieth century, teleprint- less. The most modern form of these devices ers (the European term; in the United States was fully electronic and used a visual dis- they were called teletypes), which used radio play unit with a hard copy printer. or line telegraphy, were employed exten- The mechanical typewriter was developed sively throughout the world by civilian car- in 1867 and was in large-scale U.S. produc- riers as well as military services. They began tion within a decade, directed primarily at

The teleprinter or teletype allowed rapid communication of printed military orders and information. Most ground forces in World War II made good use of these devices which could send coded signals. (Library of Congress)

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government and business office use. In tele- indicators, date-time group and originator, graph offices, operators would listen to the classification, and short break. The classi - Morse sounder and directly type plain lan- fication denoted the level of security guage messages (transcription) onto required. Before the advent of online cipher, telegram forms for hand delivery to recipi- offline encryption was performed on sensi- ents. Mechanizing that transfer helped to tive signals. speed up communication. A company was Concurrent with the teleprinter networks formed in 1906 to make machines (it became was telex. Starting in the 1930s, large tele- Teletype Corporation in 1925) into which an graph carriers began to develop systems that operator would type alphanumeric charac- used telephone-like rotary dialing to connect ters (not Morse code). New York and Boston teleprinters. These new devices were called were linked in 1910, and the Associated Press “telex,” (combining teleprinter and exchange) began to transmit war news to American and sent five-unit Baudot code in a system of newspapers four years later. The first general automated message routing. The first wide- purpose teletype appeared in 1922. The Tele- coverage automatic public telex network was type Corp. became part of AT&T in 1930, implemented in Berlin and Hamburg by the but its name was synonymous in America German Post Office in 1932 and was quickly with teleprinters. followed by other technically capable nations The “torn tape” system was initially devel- before World War II. Teleprinter operations oped by Donald Murray of New Zealand gradually declined with the introduction of just after the turn of the twentieth century. fax and visual display units (cathode ray His machine involved code-punched or tubes) from the late 1970s. Today, any per- “chadless” tape using teleprinters and sonal computer with its associated printer “reperforators.” A teletypewriter was de - equipped with a serial port can emulate the signed that could print and read these paper functionality of a teleprinter. tapes as well as print out the characters. If Military forces in Britain and its empire, the message had to be forwarded, the paper the United States, Germany, and some other tape was torn off one machine (thus the countries began to use teleprinters in their name) and sent on another connected to the networks during the 1930s. Experimentation next point-to-point link in the network. by various organizations took place, includ- Large communication centers that were ing Britain’s Royal Navy. After a successful filled with teleprinters, reperforators, and 1937 test aboard a battleship, the Royal Navy autoheads had tape factories or racks hold- made extensive use of teleprinters during ing messages—the first store-and-forward World War II. Royal Air Force Bomber Com- facilities. The basic techniques used still form mand relied on nearly a thousand dedicated the basis of all asynchronous message sys- teleprinter circuits by 1945. Wireless/radio tems such as e-mail. This system not only links were used extensively to link tele - acted as a buffer if there were more inputs printer networks. than output facilities but also permitted a Wartime demand forced American Tele- system of manual prioritization as shown type Corp. machine production up fifteenfold on the preamble of the message. The pre- from 1939 to 1944, and similar demand no amble consisted of motor startup characters, doubt impacted Creed, the famous British circuit sequence number, priority, routing teleprinter firm. Communication between

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Winston Churchill in London and Franklin communication centers. Introduced in 1955, Roosevelt in Washington often used teletype the system lasted well into the 1980s. machines with encrypted communication. Cliff Lord and Christopher H. Sterling After Western Union and AT&T’s installation See also Automatic Digital Network in the new Pentagon building of the Army (AUTO DIN); Bell Telephone Laboratories Communications Service, direct circuits con- (BTL); Commonwealth Communications nected British and American military and Army Network (COMCAN); Facsimile/ diplomatic offices and War Department Fax; High-Speed Morse; Internet; Telegraph offices to posts in the United States and over- seas. They could carry 50 million words a Sources day, up from less than a million when the Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy. war began. History of Technology Series No. 26, 391–401. After World War II, British forces gradu- Stevenage, UK: Institution of Electrical ally shifted from dependency on wireless Engineers. Calvert, J. B. 2002. “Teletypewriter.” [Online and telegraph circuits (and some high-speed article; retrieved June 2006.] http://www Morse networks) to teleprinter links, which .du.edu/~jacvert/tel/teletype.htm. were largely strategic in application. The use Department of the Army. 1954. Fundamentals of of five-unit tape became extensive by the Telegraphy (Teletypewriter). Technical Manual 1950s, applying the torn-tape concept. An TM11–665. Washington, DC: Government operator at a tributary, or small site, typed Printing Office. Huurdeman, Anton A. 2003. “Teleprinters.” signals, which caused a tape to be produced In The Worldwide History of Telecommu - by a reperforator unit at the receiving end of nications, 300–307. New York: Wiley- the circuit. The tape was then manually torn Interscience. off and placed in an autohead tape trans- Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: mitter on another circuit and dispatched to A History of Its Antecedents and Development (circa 1800–1955), 479–481. London: Royal the next destination. An operator could read Signals Institution. the routing from the routing indicator in the Nelsen, R. A. 1963. History of Teletypewriter preamble of the tape either by reading the Development. Skokie, IL: Teletype Corp. chadless tape holes (visualization) or in some Oslin, George P. 1992. “Early to Modern Operat- cases by reading the print on the reperforator ing Progress.” In The Story of Telecommunica- tape. tions, 297–317. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Message switching automation, which in Teletype Corporation. 1957. “The Teletype Britain was heralded by the Signal Transmit Story.” Skokie, IL: Teletype Corp. [Online Receive and Distribution system and Tele- information; retrieved September 2005.] graph Automatic Routing Equipment (TARE) http://www.kekatos.com/teletype/The came into use in the early 1960s. Signals _Teletype_Story_50th_Anniversary.htm. received from tributaries or relay stations were automatically routed by TARE to the next message switching equipment from Television whence it was dispatched to its destination. The Telegraph Automatic Switching Sys- The military potential of television was stud- tem was the British military telex system ied early on during the medium’s develop- linking permanent military installations and ment. From use in guided weapons to all

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types of training, television or video appeared and tested the first airborne TV broadcast to have distinct uses for the military, though test platform using very high broadcast fre- few focused at first on communication. quencies. In 1962 the Navy temporarily Articles in Britain and the United States installed RCA radio/TV broadcast equip- sug gested military applications of the tech- ment in two propeller air transports with nology even as television began regular the intent of using their capabilities during broadcast service (1936 in Britain, 1941 in the the Cuban Missile Crisis. Completed too late, United States). During the war numerous the aircraft were placed in storage for later experiments were conducted using television use. The Department of Defense began to to navigate aircraft and bombs by remote con- develop plans for airborne radio/TV broad- trol. In 1944, RCA developed the image cast capabilities to be used in the Southeast orthicon (IO) tube, which was more light sen- Asia conflict in psychological warfare. RCA sitive than existing iconoscope equipment. provided equipment and technical expertise About 4,000 of a smaller IO version were pro- to support project completion. duced for various military requirements. Fur- Early in 1965 construction of the first “Blue ther experiments developed television gun Eagle” aircraft was begun, configured as a cameras for aircraft and film equipment to platform to test the design of various TV record video images. Television allowed for broadcast antennas. Technical training began remote monitoring of some of the manufac- in May. The first applications were in Sep- turing facilities supporting the atomic bomb tember, flying psychological operation mis- project. Initial experimental work on color sions in support of the revolution going on in television was accomplished by British inven- the Dominican Republic, when the country’s tor John Logie Baird in 1942, and by CBS engi- radio stations were taken over by rebels. The neer Peter Goldmark in 1944. mission continued for about two weeks. A After World War II, television technology month later, one of the three (later six) Blue was used to make flight simulator training Eagle aircraft was ordered to Saigon to fly its more realistic. The first example of a simula- first broadcast mission (broadcasting the tor with an outside view appeared in the baseball World Series) out of Tan Son Nhut 1950s, when suitable video equipment be- Air Force Base and in support of South Viet- came available. With this equipment, a namese operations. Two more aircraft joined videocamera could be “flown” over a scale by the end of the year and all continued a model of terrain around an airport, and the combination of broadcast and psychological resulting image was sent to a television mon- warfare missions. Operations ceased in 1970, itor placed in front of the pilot in the simu- though some equipment was left for South lator. His movement of the control stick and Vietnamese forces. throttle produced corresponding movement The Defense Advanced Research Projects of the camera over the terrain board. Now Agency supported experiments with high- the pilot could receive visual feedback both definition television technology in the 1990s, inside and outside the cockpit. looking into digital compression and equip- During the 1960s, the U.S. Navy experi- ment design. Television monitoring was mented with airborne television in what widely used as a part of security systems became known as “Project Jenny.” Early in protecting military bases. the decade, Northwestern University built Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Defense Advanced Research Projects His initial electrical efforts focused on Agency (DARPA) alternating current (AC) power sources and X-ray technology. By the end of the 1880s he Sources had demonstrated his polyphase AC power Abramson, Albert. 2003. “Television and World War II.” In The History of Television, 1942 to system, which is much like that used world- 2000, chap. 1. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. wide today. It was introduced at Niagara American Forces Vietnam Network. “History of Falls in 1896, though he had already sold Project Jenny.” [Online information; retrieved his AC patents to George Westinghouse. March 2006.] www.afvn.tv/ProjectJenny/ He developed his Tesla Coil, or transformer, history.html. Schechter, Maurice. 2004. “Military Television in 1891. Tesla experimented in Colorado Equipment Built by RCA, 1942–1945.” Springs with high-voltage electricity and the [Online article; retrieved March 2006.] possibility of transmitting and distributing http://www.qsl.net/w2vtm/mil large amounts of electrical energy over long _television_history.html. distances without using wires. Some have Slee, J. A. 1935. “Potentialities of Television for argued he invented radio, based on his work Warlike Purposes.” Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 80 (August): 522–528. beginning in 1893 and two U.S. patents of Van Deusen, G. L. 1939. “Television and Its 1900. His later proposed world wireless sys- Possible Military Applications.” Signal Corps tem failed in development for lack of the Bulletin July–September: 17–20. substantial funds needed to construct it. Tesla patented a wireless means to remotely control a boat in 1898. He demon- Tesla, Nikola (1856–1943) strated a small version just months later in New York. He believed the Navy would be A Serbian-American electrical inventor interested in such a device as well as in radio- active in the United States from the late nine- guided torpedoes, yet they did not take up teenth into the early twentieth century, Tesla either idea at the time. Officials argued his innovated communications and automation remote-control system was too fragile for use ideas of potential interest to the military, in combat and could be easily jammed by an though he achieved few contracts. He has enemy force. He also proposed the essentials become a semimythical cult figure to many of radar and remote-control missiles decades people today, and sorting out reality from before they actually appeared. Indeed, radio fiction is not easy. remote control of weapons remained largely Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in what is a novelty until well after his own relevant now Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hun- patents had expired. garian Empire. He studied mechanical and In the mid-1930s, Tesla proposed a “death electrical engineering at the Austrian Poly- beam” device that, using high power, was technic School in the 1870s, and later worked said to be able to destroy aircraft hundreds of as an electrical engineer in Budapest and miles away. He suggested the use of such Paris. Tesla moved to the United States in beams could defend nations like an “invisi- 1884 and worked briefly for Thomas Edison ble Chinese Wall,” only they would be more before moving on to Westinghouse. He impenetrable. He briefly negotiated with the turned to independent research and inven- British government to help develop such a tion by 1887. system, though no agreement resulted.

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Tesla received a total of 112 patents (GC&CS) to translate Russian diplomatic between 1886 and 1928. After he died at the messages in 1920, while taking a Russian age of eighty-six on 7 January 1943 in New language course. He showed such a flair for York City, agents of the Federal Bureau of code breaking that he never returned to his Investigation took away many of his surviv- regiment. ing papers, leading to years of conspiracy Tiltman was posted to India in late 1921, supposition about what the bureau held still mainly working on Russian diplomatic (and why) and what information was in traffic, but also designing some cipher sys- them. Six months after his death, the U.S. tems. He became a civil servant in 1925 and Supreme Court held that his wireless patents returned to England 1929 as head of the new preceded those of Marconi. military section at GC&CS, to work on Rus - Christopher H. Sterling sian and Japanese codes. Starting at least by See also Edison, Thomas A. (1847–1931); 1933, he made significant success against the Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937) constantly evolving Japanese systems. This work undoubtedly helped him subsequently Sources to break into JN-25, the principal Japanese Cheney, Margaret. 1981. Tesla: Man Out of Time. naval code when it was introduced in June Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 1939. Tiltman solved its indicator system Martin, Thomas C., ed. 1894. The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla. New within a few months—a year ahead of the York: Electrical Engineer. U.S. Navy’s OP-20-G. He also helped Dill- Secor, H. Winfield. 1917 “Tesla’s Views on wyn Knox to break the coded traffic of the Electricity and the War.” Electrical Experi- Communist International with Communist menter V (August): 229. parties in the United Kingdom and Europe Seifer, Marc J. 1996. Wizard: The Life and Times of throughout the 1930s. Nikola Tesla—Biography of a Genius. Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press. Tiltman was recalled to the army in Sep- Tesla, Nikola. 1982. My Inventions: The Autobiog- tember 1939 as a lieutenant-colonel, but raphy of Nikola Tesla. New York: Barnes & remained at GC&CS. He quickly solved two Noble. German army field ciphers, including the difficult double Playfair (Doppelkastenschlüs- sel). By April 1940, he had also solved a Tiltman, John Hessell (1894–1982) commercial Enigma machine (without a plugboard) used by the Swiss, together with John Tiltman’s remarkable career as a cryp- a German meteorological cipher used for tologist spanned almost sixty years, from artillery purposes, and the Russian meteoro- 1921 to 1980: with the British until 1964, and logical cipher. In mid-1940, he read messages then with the U.S. National Security Agency on a commercial Enigma used by the Ger- (NSA). man railways, which enabled others at Tiltman was born in London on 25 May Bletchley Park to determine the machine’s 1894. He worked as a teacher from 1911 to rotor wiring. In mid-1941, he solved a Kryha 1914, when he joined the army. He was machine cipher used in traffic between Spain wounded in France in 1917 and won the and Germany. Military Cross. He was assigned to the One of Tiltman’s biggest contributions to Government Code and Cipher School the war effort came in mid-1941 when he

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read two messages enciphered on the Lorenz ogy.” Tiltman was admitted to NSA’s Hall of SZ 40/42 teleprinter cipher system (code- Honor in 2004, the only Briton ever to be so named “Tunny” by GC&CS). These became honored. He died in Hawaii on 10 August the basis for GC&CS’s solution of the Tunny 1982. machine in early 1942. Ralph Erskine and Peter Freeman By March 1942 Tiltman and his unit had See also Bletchley Park; Code Breaking, partially recovered the indicating system of Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; Germany: the Japanese military attaché system. To cope Naval Intelligence (B-Dienst); Government with the shortage of Japanese linguists, he Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); organized intensive six-month courses in Magic; National Security Agency (NSA); OP-20-G; Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Japanese for talented linguists. These were Ultra very successful, although language experts had disparaged them, presuming that learn- Sources ing Japanese would take several years. He Erskine, Ralph, and Peter Freeman. 2003. invented the important stencil subtractor “Brigadier John Tiltman: One of Britain’s frame, which from 1943 onward replaced Finest Cryptologists.” Cryptologia 27: 289–318. the vulnerable conventional subtractor tables Nicoll, D. R. 2004. “Tiltman, John Hessell (1894– previously used for enciphering British mil- 1982).” in Oxford Dictionary of National Bio- itary and civil codes. graphy, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Tiltman was a member of important liaison Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University visits to the United States in 1942, and always Press. pressed for the fullest cooperation with Amer- Tiltman, John H. n.d. “Some Reminiscences from Bg. Tiltman.” National Archives and ican Army and naval code breakers, even Records Administration, College Park, MD, when some senior GC&CS figures were less RG 457, Historic Cryptographic Collection, enthusiastic. He was promoted to brigadier in Pre–World War I Through World War II, Box June 1944 and was later always known as 1417, Nr. 4632. “the Brig.” He became the first head of the cryptanalytic group when it was established at GC&CS in 1945, returned to civilian status Trafalgar, Battle of in April 1946, and was named assistant direc- (21 October 1805) tor at what became Government Communi- cations Headquarters (GCHQ) in 1947. By The Battle of Trafalgar was the most signifi- 1954, when he formally retired from GCHQ, cant naval engagement of the Napoleonic he had spent upward of thirty years breaking Wars and the pivotal naval battle of the into previously unexploited ciphers from nineteenth century. The British victory ended scratch. He was immediately re-employed by the threat of an invasion of England by GCHQ for another decade, after which time Napoleon and guaranteed British domina- NSA recruited him as a researcher and consul- tion of the seas for more than a century. Cen- tant troubleshooter. tral to the victory was effective use of naval Recipient of numerous awards and hon- signaling. ors, in 1980 he was honored by the directors Fought 20 miles off Cape Trafalgar, west of both NSA and GCHQ for his “uncount- of Gibraltar on the Atlantic coast of Spain, able contributions and successes in cryptol- the battle saw a Royal Navy fleet under the

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command of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson the signal process. As it was, Pasco still had (1758–1805) destroy a large combined French to spell out “d-u-t-y,” which was also not in and Spanish fleet of thirty-three ships under the flag code. The famous signal was posted the command of Vice Admiral Pierre de Vil- shortly before noon (sources differ) and took leneuve. Nelson’s daring plan was to divide but four minutes to transmit. Nelson’s his smaller fleet of twenty-seven vessels into equally famous order to “Engage the Enemy two groups. One would attack portions of More Closely” (number 16 in the Popham the opposing enemy line and destroy them flag code) followed at 12:20 p.m. It stayed up before other ships could come to their aid. until shot away in the heat of the battle. Simultaneously, the other group would Use of these battle flags showed both the attack the enemy at right angles, break strength and weakness of such signaling through their lines, and then cut off their methods. While the standard system allowed retreat. The strategy would prove decisive, ready understanding by multiple vessels, as it caught the French and Spanish ships by the process was still cumbersome, requiring surprise. Nelson’s sailors achieved a total the flying of a total of thirty-one flags (seven defeat of the enemy fleet, which lost twenty of which spelled out “duty”) plus the initial ships (and 14,000 men, half of them prison- red-and-white telegraph flag, which an - ers) while the British lost no vessels. Nelson nounced a signal was forthcoming. Each was mortally wounded and died toward the word or (in the case of “duty”) letter had to end of the five-hour battle, though not before be separately hoisted. Only highly trained he knew of his fleet’s victory. personnel could have accomplished this in Trafalgar was also significant because Nel- just four minutes. Further, in the heat, son effectively utilized a recently developed smoke, and confusion of battle, clearly read- system of alphabetical flag signaling that ing flag signals was anything but easy to do. had been devised by Sir Home Riggs Jaime Olivares and Popham. Nelson’s ability to pursue and Christopher H. Sterling retain control of his daring battle plan See also Flaghoist; Flags; Napoleonic Wars depended completely on his use of Pop- (1795–1815); Popham, Home Riggs ham’s range of signal flags, which offered (1762–1820) great flexibility in passing information from his flagship Victory to other ships in his fleet Sources on a moment-by-moment basis. Bennett, Geoffrey Martin. 1977. The Battle of Using these flag signals, Nelson encour- Trafalgar. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. aged his British sailors with the now famous Kent, Barrie. 1993. “John Pasco and the Trafal- message “England expects every man to do gar Signal.” in Signal! A History of Signalling his duty.” Lieutenant John Pasco (later a rear in the Royal Navy, 7 and plate I. Clanfield, admiral, 1774–1853) who was serving as sig- UK: Hyden House. nal officer for Nelson, obtained the admiral’s Lavery, Brian. 2004. Nelson’s Fleet at Trafalgar. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. agreement to substitute the verb “expect” Morriss, Roger, ed. 1997. The Campaign of (which was included in Popham’s code) for Trafalgar, 1803–1805. London: Chatham, in Nelson’s original word “confide” (which association with the National Maritime was not included, and would thus have to be Museum. spelled out using more flags), speeding up

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Transistor six months later, and its first practical appli- cation was in a Bell System telephone Created by a team of Bell Telephone Labora- switching office. Bell Labs’ Morgan Sparks tories scientists in the late 1940s, the transis- determined how to make transistors more tor initiated the solid state revolution, which capable of handling complex signals—such transformed electronic equipment of all as the human voice. Bell Labs held a con- kinds. Developed as a vacuum tube replace- ference about all aspects of the transistor ment for telephone applications, the Nobel in September 1951 and a detailed technical Prize–winning invention spawned a new symposium in April 1952. These began industry and revolutionized military elec- the rapid development of the technology tronics. It is widely considered the most rev- by a host of American and a few overseas olutionary electronic development of the companies. twentieth century. The first mass-produced transistors ap - At its most basic form, a transistor is a peared in 1953; they were soon followed by tiny (today it is microscopic) solid state transistorized hearing aids and (in Septem- device, made with a chip of a specially ber 1954) initial pocket-size AM radios. By processed crystal substance, with three tiny 1955 the first silicon-based transistors were terminals. A single transistor can amplify, being made. Shockley had left Bell Labs to rectify, detect, and switch signals as only a form Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, bulky and fragile vacuum tube could do the pioneering San Francisco Bay company before. A transistor is a semiconductor triode that soon initiated development of what in engineering terms. As means of manufac- became Silicon Valley. Bardeen (who would turing the tiny devices became more effi- later win a second Nobel Prize) and Brattain cient, the benefits of the transistor became moved on to other research. In 1956 the three rapidly apparent: compared to vacuum scientists shared the Nobel Prize for their tubes they offered longer life and greater invention. reliability, used less power and thus created Aside from the more widely publicized less heat and took less space, and were far consumer applications, transistors were first cheaper to make in bulk lots. They provided utilized in the developing U.S. missile and dramatic improvements in the circuit capac- space program, and then were applied to ity of wired and radio telecommunications other equipment where robustness was vital. as well as early computers. Transistors made that equipment far lighter In December 1947 three scientists at Bell and somewhat less complex to manufacture. Labs, John Bardeen (1908–1991), William Both the Air Force and Army Signal Corps Shockley (1910–1989), and Walter Brattain began extensive research projects into how (1902–1987) succeeded in sending an elec- best to develop and utilize the transistor. trical signal through a specially prepared Modern transistors included in integrated crystal of germanium—what was called a circuits are usually field-effect devices—and point-contact transistor. John Pierce of Bell a single silicon chip today can contain more Labs suggested the name of the device, than 50 million transistors. Some estimates drawing on its functions. Improved by are that by 2010, transistors may be only half Shockley as the more practical junction the microscopic size they already are now. transistor, the invention was announced Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL); easier to maintain, and more reliable than Miniaturization; Silicon Valley, California; older equipment; it provided greater channel Solid State Electronics; Vacuum Tube capacity; and it was more mobile and respon- sive. “Project Mallard” was established in 1968 Sources Bell Telephone Laboratories. 1958. “The Transis- at Fort Monmouth to develop cellular phone tor 1948–1958: Ten Years of Progress at Bell technologies for the battlefield. This was a Telephone Laboratories.” Bell Laboratories development and procurement program Record 36 (June): 190–236. intended to provide a secure tactical commu- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. nications system for American, British, Cana- 1976. “Special Issue: Historical Notes on Important Tubes and Semiconductor dian, and Australian forces in the 1980s. In Devices.” IEEE Transactions on Electron 1971, however, Congress killed Mallard in Devices ED-23 (July): 595–790. favor of the TRI-TAC program. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. TRI-TAC began as a concept in 1971 as 1998. “Special Issue: 50th Anniversary of military operations in South Vietnam were the Transistor!” Proceedings of the IEEE 86 (1): drawing to a close. It served as the principal 1–217. Ridenour, Louis N. 1951. “A Revolution in voice communications system employed in a Electronics.” Scientific American 185 (2): joint tactical circuit-switched network to sup- 13–17. port joint task force exercises, deployments, and contingency operations. TRI-TAC com- munications systems were originally fielded Tri-Service Tactical as means of voice command and control dur- Communications Program ing the 1980s. The Army and Air Force began (TRI-TAC) fielding new equipment that significantly enhanced tactical voice communications, The Tri-Service Tactical Communications Pro- providing the capability to install a robust gram (TRI-TAC) is a digital, large volume, hybrid (analog and digital) backbone net- circuit-switched communication system with work. This afforded the flexibility to interface analog-to-digital converting capability. Devel- with the myriad switchboards in the military opment began in 1971, and continually inventory. updated versions of the system have been During the 1990–1991 Gulf War, Army, Air used in military actions since the 1980s. Force, Joint Communications Support Ele- Army Signal Corps equipment into the ment, and Marine Corps equipment was 1960s provided separate voice, record, and employed to establish the theater circuit data communications circuits. Multichannel switch network. In a theater devoid of com- communications used radio spectrum by munications capabilities, these switches combining several channels for transmission successfully supported both strategic and over one radio. Multichannel equipment tactical users. TRI-TAC systems were also using digital transmission was introduced in used during 1990s’ operations in Somalia, the field in the late 1960s, and approximately Bosnia, and Kosovo, and 2002–2003 opera- 25 percent of the Army’s requirement had tions in Afghanistan and Iraq. been fielded through fiscal year 1970. For the TRI-TAC communications networks con- most part, equipment was solid state and rep- sist of components that ensure users have the resented state of the art. It was smaller, lighter, capability to transmit and receive voice, data,

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and video, regardless of location. Transmis- Sources sion systems are based on common TRI-TAC Department of the Army. 1995. The Signal standards, and all interoperate. Similar to Leaders Guide. Field Manual 11–43 (June). Washington, DC: Government Printing mobile subscriber equipment, the TRI-TAC Office. network forms a communications grid of Department of the Army. 2005. The Signal area nodes, which covers a given area of Leader’s Guide. Field Manual Interim operations. The area nodes normally inter- 6-02.43 2-9 (30 November). Fort Gordon, GA: connect by line-of-sight links up to 25 miles U.S. Army Signal Center. Hamilton, Brian, and Walton Brown. 2000. apart. Tactical satellite and tropospheric links “Tactical High-Speed Data Network: The can further extend that range. The system Army’s Interim Answer to Battlefield Data also provides packet-switched data commu- Transport.” Army Communicator 25 nications service for local area networks and (Spring): 1. individual host computers. TRI-TAC can Williams, Charles F., Jr. 1974. “What is operate at top secret and compartmented TRI-TAC?” Air University Review 25 (May–June): 4. levels. As users embraced commercial off-the- shelf data and video teleconferencing appli- cations, however, TRI-TAC data capacities Tropospheric Scatter were quickly overwhelmed. Thus both the Army and Air Force are replacing older Also known as troposcatter, or simply tropo switches and terminals with state-of-the-art communications, such systems bounce sig- digital equipment, procuring commercial nals off particles in the troposphere (the telephone switches and lightweight, multi- atmospheric layer closest to earth). Tro- band satellite terminals. The switches are poscatter systems were developed before capable of entering the Defense Integrated communication satellite systems became Switched Network or public switched tele- available to provide long-distance links. The phone network. quality of early troposcatter communications TRI-TAC and mobile subscriber equip- often varied from hour to hour. As troposcat- ment (MSE) systems are now nearing the ter signal strengths were normally low, they end of their planned life cycle. Their replace- required high-power, high-gain antennas ment will be the Warfighter Information Net- and sensitive receivers. However, their work–Tactical (WIN-T) in the Army’s advantages—a cost-effective communica- version. WIN-T will provide an advanced tions system for data and voice over medium seamless multimedia transport system that and long distances—long outweighed its will connect and serve all Army echelons. It disadvantages. will be a mobile, high-capacity, secure, and In the 1950s and early 1960s, troposcatter survivable network. systems were used for communications sys- Danny Johnson tems operating over longer distances. The Pinetree Line, which became operational in See also Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq War 1952, was the first of three communication (2003–Present); Mobile Communications; Telephone; Television; Tropospheric Scatter; lines supporting air defense radar sites con- Warfighter Information Network–Tactical structed across Canada. Tropo links con- (WIN-T) nected the forty-four Canadian and six U.S.

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Air Force manned radar sites. The WHITE tems are utilized not only by a number of the ALICE Communications System was built to world’s armed forces, including China and connect the various aircraft control and India, but also by commercial entities that warning radars located in Alaska. WHITE require reliable long-haul communications. ALICE attained full operational capability Tommy R. Young II on 26 March 1958. The system would even- See also Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq War tually be expanded to connect the Distant (2003–Present); North Atlantic Treaty Organi - Early Warning Line and Ballistic Missile zation (NATO) Communications & Infor ma- Early Warning System line of Canadian tion Systems Agency; Tri-Service Tactical radar stations. The systems provided com- Communications Program (TRI-TAC) munications with a reliability of more than Sources 99 percent in the harsh Arctic conditions. Chaukas, Treevra. “Corps of Signals.” [Online The North Atlantic Treaty Organization information; retrieved April 2007.] used troposcatter for its ACE High system as http://indianarmy.nic.in/arsig1.htm. early as 1956. The ACE High system con- Emmerson, Andy. “ACE HIGH.” [Online sisted of forty-nine troposcatter links and article; retrieved December 2006.] http:// www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/features/ace forty line-of-sight microwave links extend- _high/index.html. ing from Norway to Turkey. In the mid- Pinetree Line. 2006. Home page. [Online 1980s, troposcatter systems were used to information; retrieved December 2006.] extend the long-haul capability of the Joint http://www.pinetreeline.org. Tri-Service Tactical Communications Pro- Rhodes, Brad E. 2005. “What is the Future of gram network. While advances in satellite Troposcatter in the Army? History, Successes, Usage and Upgrades Supporting the communications in the 1980s and 1990s Integrated Theater Signal Battalion.” [Online seemed to portend the end of troposcatter article; retrieved December 2006.] systems, ever-increasing demand for more http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/ communications capacity exceeded the capa- propagation/troposcatter/troposcatter bilities of the satellite systems. Consequently, .php. Snyder, Thomas S., et al. 1986. The Air Force tropospheric scatter systems continued to be Communications Command: 1938–1986 An used for tactical communications systems. Illustrated History. Scott Air Force Base, IL: During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Air Force Communications Command Office troposcatter systems provided the long-haul of History. communications backbone for one of the longest tactical communications networks ever established. During the 1990s, new tro- Truxton, Thomas (1755–1822) poscatter systems were fielded by the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. During Thomas Truxton (sometimes spelled Trux- the Iraq War (begun in 2003 and continuing tun) was an American naval officer who in at the time of publication), troposcatter sys- 1797 wrote the first naval signal book to tems again provided the essential long-haul organize the flag signal codes of the nascent communications. American Navy. Troposcatter systems offer reliable, cost- Truxton was born on 17 February 1755 near effective, and high-capacity (up to 4 mps) Hempstead, New York, on Long Island. With long-haul communications without relying the minimal level of education common in on availability of satellite channels. The sys- those days, at the age of twelve he joined the

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crew of the British merchant ship Pitt. Over See also Artillery/Gunfire; Flags; Night Signals; the next eight years, he impressed many of his Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820); Signal Book; superiors with his leadership abilities. In 1775, United Kingdom Royal Navy; U.S. Navy the Royal Navy offered the twenty-year-old Sources Truxton command of his own merchant ves- Ferguson, Eugene S. 1956. Truxtun of the Constel- sel, the Andrew Caldwell, as a reward for his lation; the life of Commodore Thomas Truxtun, exploits. The outbreak of hostilities in the U. S. Navy, 1755–1822. Baltimore: Johns American Revolution would transform Trux- Hopkins University Press. ton’s career. He operated as an American pri- Truxton, Thomas. 1797. Instructions, Signals, and Explanations, Ordered for the United States vateer commanding at different times four Fleet. Baltimore: Printed by John Hayes, in ships: the Congress, Independence, Mars, and St. Public-Alley. James. He became a national hero as he suc- cessfully captured numerous English ships while never suffering defeat. Tsushima, Battle of (27–28 Truxton returned to the merchant marine May 1905) for another dozen years. In 1786, he com- manded one of the first American ships to The naval battle of Tsushima, the ultimate engage in trade with China, the Canton, oper- contest of the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese ating from Philadelphia. When it became War, was one of the most decisive sea battles evident that the United States was being in history. Superior communications capabil- pulled into the continuing French Revolu- ity and application played a large part in tion in 1794, Truxton was appointed a cap- Japan’s victory over a hapless Russian fleet. tain in the new American Navy. Admiral Z. P. Rojdestvensky, commander In 1797, Truxton published the first naval of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, recast as the Second signal book for use by the recently organized Pacific Squadron, sailed to replace losses sus- Navy. His system utilized ten numeral pen- tained in the earlier defeat of the Russian nants, made of combinations of red, white, Pacific Fleet at the Battle of Shantung in blue, and yellow bunting, with flags for August 1904. His fleet’s voyage took a repeaters. The codes contained approxi- tedious nine months to travel 18,000 miles mately 290 signals. During darkness or fog, from the Baltic, around Africa and out to East signals were indicated by gun and musket Asian waters, an ordeal for which his coal- fire or lights. The Navy would utilize Trux- fired warships were ill equipped. Though ton’s book to modernize its signaling tech- the Russian objective was to break Japan’s nology and strategy, though the book itself blockade of Port Arthur, by the time the was soon withdrawn when discrepancies exhausted fleet finally arrived, the city had were discovered between Truxton’s manu- already fallen. The only remaining Russian script and the printed version. Over the next Pacific port of refuge was Vladivostok. Of several years, elements of his system would the three possible passages to that port, the become the part of the basis of improved narrow strait of Tsushima, between Korea flag signaling codebooks in both the Ameri- and Japan, was the simplest, and was chosen can and British navies. by Admiral Rojdestvensky—and, for the Truxton died on 5 May1822 in Phila - same reason, was guessed by the Japanese. delphia. The Russian ships utilized German Slaby- Jaime Olivares Arco wireless signaling equipment with a

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range of not more than 65 miles, and were Russo-Japanese War forced the Russians into thus often out of touch with the Russian U.S.-brokered peace negotiations. Tsushima Admiralty. Equipment constantly broke down established Japan as a major naval power on the long voyage, and wireless operators and demonstrated the importance of effec- were neither well trained nor well supervised. tive maritime wireless communications in As the fleet approached the Philippines, the battle. admiral complained that wireless traffic Arthur M. Holst and Christopher H. Sterling among his vessels was hopeless, and re- See also Japan: Navy (Nippon Teikoku Kaigun); stricted his fleet to sail within visual signaling Russia/Soviet Union: Navy distance. As he approached Tsushima, he imposed radio silence, resisting a suggestion Sources to jam Japanese wireless messages. Busch, Noel F. 1969. The Emperor’s Sword: Japan Japanese vessels employed an improved vs. Russia in the Battle of Tsushima. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. version of Marconi wireless equipment, and Hazlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power, all ships could, and did, readily intercommu- 44–49. New York: Stein & Day. nicate. Admiral Heihachiro Togo relied on Hough, Richard. 1958. The Fleet that Had to Die. wireless reports from outlying patrolling New York: Viking Press. vessels to tell him when the Russian ships Pleshakov, Constantine. 2002. The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of approached. Elements of his fleet spotted Tsushima. New York: Basic Books. two Russian hospital ships on 26 May and Russo-Japanese War Research Society. 2002. reported immediately. At 2 p.m. on 27 May, Admiral Togo’s Report on the Battle of Tsushima. Japanese and Russian battleships began to [Online report; retrieved September 2004.] exchange gunfire. The Japanese ships suc- http://www.russojapanesewar .com/ ceeded in “crossing the T” in front of the togo-aar3.html. Russian fleet twice. In the heat of battle, both fleets resorted to visual flag signals rather than wireless. Early in the morning of 28 Turing, Alan Mathison (1912–1954) May (after ships on both sides had scattered during darkness), the Japanese used wireless Alan Turing was a British mathematician to pull their fleet together to finish off the who pioneered development of electronic Russian remnants. computers for the decoding of enemy elec- The Japanese enjoyed several advantages tronic signals. in addition to their superior tactical use of Turing was born 23 June 1912 in London, wireless. Their ships were newer and faster the son of a British official in the government and featured more effective artillery crewed of India. He graduated in mathematics in by highly trained men who hit their targets 1935 from Cambridge University’s King’s more often. Thus the battle became a mas- College. His 1935 article “On Gaussian Error sacre of the Russians, and only four of their Function” (concerning probability theory) ships escaped. The Japanese lost only three won a Smith’s Prize in 1936. That same year torpedo boats, and their total casualties were Turing began graduate work on mathematical tiny: 117 dead and nearly 600 injured, com- logic at Princeton University with Alonzo pared to nearly 4,400 Russian dead and 6,000 Church. In 1937 Turing published his most injured. This final crushing action of the important paper, “On Computable Numbers

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with Application to the Entscheidungs Prob- become one of the most advanced computers lem.” This addressed the question posed by of its day. David Hilbert whether all mathematical prob- In 1950 Turing published “Computing lems could be solved. Turing’s answer was a Machinery and Intelligence,” arguing that definitive “no.” Turing received his doctor of machines could be built to mimic human philosophy degree from Princeton in 1939. thinking. To illustrate he created the “Turing To prove his mathematical conclusion Tur- Test,” in which an operator, remotely con- ing developed the concept of what became nected to another human over one line and known later as the “Turing Machine.” Turing a machine over another line, would pose a imagined a mechanism that could read and series of questions. When the examiner write to a tape according to its design. The could no longer tell the difference between design was set forth in a table of features. the two, artificial intelligence would have While the table defining the machine was been achieved. He was one of five authori- finite, the machine could do an infinite ties presenting a series of five lectures on amount of work. computers broadcast by the BBC in 1951. On 4 September 1939, the day after Brilliant but sometimes odd and absent- Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, minded in his behavior, Turing could be dif- Turing joined the Government Code and ficult to work with. Under increasing police Cipher School at Bletchley Park, the center of surveillance because of his homosexuality, Britain’s project to decode German Enigma Turing took his own life on 7 June 1954 at his signals. Nazi signal traffic was encoded by a home in Cheshire. typewriter-like machine called the Enigma. Andrew J. Waskey, Jr. Turing played a central role in helping to develop an electromechanical device— See also Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945); Bletchley Park; Code, Codebook; Code dubbed a “bombe”—that could assist in the Breaking; Computer; Enigma; Government reading of German signals by reducing the Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); number of permutations to be decoded. Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC; Signals Over time, this and related innovations Intelligence (SIGINT); Ultra helped the Allies to ultimately defeat the U- boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. Sources Gottfried, Ted. 1996. Alan Turing: The Architect After the war Turing joined the National of the Computer Age. New York: Franklin Physical Laboratory in Teddington, England. Watts. He helped to design an early computer Hodges, Andrew. 1983. Alan Turing: The Enigma. called the Automatic Computing Engine. He New York: Simon and Schuster. next accepted a position at Manchester Uni- Lavington, Simon. 1980. Early British Computers. versity as a reader (member of the faculty) Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. and assisted in the development of Britain’s Millican, P. J. R. 1996. The Legacy of Alan Turing. first large computer, the Mark I. While at New York: Oxford University Press. Manchester, Turing worked on the Manches- Strathern, Paul. 1999. Turing and the Computer. ter Digital Machine, which was soon to New York: Anchor Books.

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Ultra designated the German machine systems as Ultra in 1940 to describe decrypted enemy “Ultra” and “Top Secret Ultra” were the code radio intelligence communications—princi- terms applied by the British to their secret pally German, some Italian, and a few Japan- World War II code-breaking efforts, focused ese army and naval ciphers. The coded primarily on attacking the German Enigma material was intercepted by Y Service radio machine-generated coded communication. listening posts all over Britain and around The successful effort had an important the Mediterranean for final analysis at BP. impact on military and naval actions in the The British first broke the codes used by European and Atlantic theaters from 1940 the Luftwaffe in the spring of 1940. The Luft- through 1945. waffe code could be used to develop some Polish cryptographers first learned of the information about German army activities, Enigma device in 1928, and through mathe- but in general, German army decrypts, many matical analysis began devising solutions to of them having to do with the army’s order German message traffic. In 1930, French of battle—the disposition of their land intelligence began working cooperatively units—could not be fully interpreted until with the Poles. In 1931, a French intelligence the summer of 1942. Not until mid-1943 did officer received parts of an Enigma instruc- the British finally break the code used by tion manual from a dissident German offi- the German submarine service, with the cial. Several Polish mathematicians spent the result that losses of Allied Atlantic convoys next half-dozen years developing several dropped off sharply. functioning analog machines, and in July For some months following American 1939, fearing that their country would soon entry into the war in late 1941, the British be attacked, gave them to the French and were reluctant to share what they had with British. their new allies, but Prime Minister Winston The British Government Code and Cipher Churchill briefed General Dwight Eisen- School at Bletchley Park (BP) collectively hower on Ultra in late June 1942. Eisenhower

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fully grasped the value of the program, but See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Park; Code some of his subordinates, notably Generals Breaking; Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; Mark Clark and George S. Patton, Jr., were Government Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Magic; Polish Code Breaking; dubious about its utility. British General Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Turing, Alan Bernard Montgomery was another officer (1912–1954); Welchman, Gordon (1906–1985); who often disregarded Ultra intelligence. Y Service The two countries eventually signed secret agreements on sharing the effort and results Sources of their code breaking—a relationship that Bennett, Ralph. 1989. Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: Pantheon. continues to this day. Calvocoressi, Peter. 1980. Top Secret Ultra. New Although the British did share some intel- York: Pantheon. ligence information with the French, they Kahn, David. 1991. Seizing the Enigma: The Race did not share the Ultra secret or code- to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943. breaking technology with the Russians. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kozaczuk, Wladyslaw, and Jerzy Straszak. 2004. Occasionally, selected intelligence informa- Enigma: How the Poles Broke the Nazi Code. tion such as advance warning of the German New York: Hippocrene Books. invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Lewin, Ronald. 1978. Ultra Goes to War: The First was passed on to Josef Stalin, though to no Account of World War II’s Greatest Secret, Based avail. on Official Documents. New York: McGraw- The British, and later the Americans, uti- Hill. Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh. 2000. Enigma: The lized Special Liaison Units (SLUs) to trans- Battle for the Code. London: Weidenfeld & mit sensitive top secret Ultra material to Nicolson. commanders in the field on a need-to-know basis. British SLUs merely handed intelli- gence intercepts to their commanders, Underground Communication whereas American SLUs synthesized, sum- Centers marized, and interpreted intercepts for their recipients. The Allies used German Ultra The growing strength of artillery and bomb- intercepts with care, partly owing to un - ing aircraft forced a proportion of command certainty about their authenticity. But the and communications facilities into under- principal limitation on the use of Ultra intel- ground bunker structures as early as World ligence was that the British, and later the War I. The rising cost and complexity of such Americans, had to identify and utilize some facilities during World War II and especially other pertinent piece(s) of information apart in the Cold War decades that followed under- from broken codes before acting on Ultra, scored the growing centrality of communica- lest the Germans draw the conclusion that tions in modern military conflict as well as their communications had been compro- continuity of government amid nuclear war. mised. Most details concerning the operation Numerous once-secret but now obsolete of Ultra remained secret until the publication facilities have become museums in recent of F. W. Winterbotham’s The Ultra Secret years—but many more remain in active use. (1974) opened the floodgates. Perhaps the best known of the World War Keir B. Sterling II sites is the Cabinet War Rooms in central

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London, not far from the Houses of Parlia- there. Communications facilities included a ment. Now operated by the Imperial War transatlantic telephone room where Churchill Museum, they were originally built in the and Franklin Roosevelt, among others, com- late 1930s as tensions between Britain and municated; BBC equipment for wartime Germany grew, in an attempt to protect vital broadcasts; a telephone exchange; and a large communications links in a city subject to aer- map room with numerous secure telephone ial bombing. They were built into a subbase- links. To the west of London, at Royal Air ment of a government office building, with Force Uxbridge, Fighter Command main- specially reinforced ceilings to resist bomb tained its primary underground communica- impact. There were several related sites in or tions control during the Battle of Britain—also near London, but this set of rooms was occu- now a museum. pied for the entire war. On occasion during From the 1950s well into the 1970s, numer- the 1940 blitz and again during the 1944–1945 ous Cold War command-and-control bunk - V-weapon attacks, Winston Churchill stayed ers for both governments and military

Underground headquarters and communications centers became important in the twentieth century. This is a portion of the Cabinet War Rooms in London, located 50 feet under a government building as part of a maze of work spaces with accommodation for up to 270 people. It is now part of the Imperial War Museum. (Hulton- Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

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services were constructed in (among other “molehole” due to its ramped tunnels and nations) Britain, Canada, and the United self-contained condition. The structure fea- States. Several have since become museums. tured lavish and modern connections to the Less than 20 miles west of Ottawa is Carp, world outside. Its “big board” featured a site of what is now derisively called the series of huge maps and screens showing “Diefenbunker” (after the prime minister military conditions worldwide. The first who ordered it built), designed to continue Air Force computers were installed there in Canada’s government and military capabil- 1957. A “red phone” system, with dedicated ities in the event of nuclear war. Built connections to 200 operating locations between 1959 and 1961, it became a museum internationally, further supported commu- in the 1990s. Several similar continuity-of- nications with the SAC underground post. government sites operated in England and An expanded center built from 1986 to 1989 Scotland, and some are now museums. in cluded protection against electromag- One of the better known (and still active) netic pulse as well as state-of-the-art com- American sites is Cheyenne Mountain, near munications links and information displays. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Begun in 1961 Through satellites and radio networks on a as the center of North American air defense, variety of spectrum bands, the center (now and fully operational before the end of the the Strategic Command Center) can commu- decade, this massive underground site with nicate with aircraft in flight over any part of multiple roles has constantly updated its the world. communication facilities. Some 1,250 people Both sides in the Vietnam War made exten- from all the service branches and the Cana- sive use of underground communications dian armed forces staff the North American bunkers. Those in Saigon were located under Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Space the Presidential Palace and served as head- Command, and Air Force Space Command. quarters for the South Vietnamese govern- There are also civil defense personnel. The ment. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese site can survive at least a month on its own became expert builders of low-technology resources, independent of any outside sup- (but still quite effective) communication cen- plies. In 2006 plans were announced to shift ters underground. During the decades of many of its functions to a nearby air base. fighting in Afghanistan, underground facili- Another (though lesser known) example is ties were extensively used by both sides. Dur- the former U.S. Strategic Air Command ing the Gulf and Iraq wars, destruction of (SAC) center, constructed at Offutt Air Force extensive Iraqi underground bunkers became Base outside Omaha, Nebraska, beginning in a priority for Allied aircraft. 1955. A special three-story structure below Indeed, going underground has become ground served SAC as its command post so pervasive worldwide that in 1997, the throughout most of the Cold War period. Central Intelligence Agency formed the Made of hardened reinforced concrete, the Underground Facility Analysis Center underground command post had 24-inch (UFAC) as a military service and intelligence thick walls and a 24- to 42-inch-thick roof agency consortium effort to detect, character- and blast- and gas-proof doors. An extended ize, coordinate, and assess potential adver- tunnel led up to an above-ground office sarial underground facilities (or hardened building. The facility was always called the and deeply buried targets—HDBT). More

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specifically, UFAC’s mission is to provide McCamley, N. J. 2002. Cold War Secret Nuclear intelligence data that would support enemy Bunkers: The Passive Defence of the Western HDBT defeat. As part of this effort, the World During the Cold War. Barnsley, UK: Leo Cooper. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Patton, Phil. 1999. “Going Ballistic!” Wired formed the Counter Underground Facilities November: 7–11. Program to focus research efforts on detec- Ozorak, Paul. 1998. Bunkers Bunkers Everywhere. tion and defeat of potential enemy under- Ottawa: Paul Ozorak. ground facilities. Simpkins, Peter. 1983. The Cabinet War Rooms. London: Imperial War Museum. Christopher H. Sterling

See also Britain, Battle of (1940); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Site R; Vietnam War (1959–1975); Undersea Cables Zossen, Germany Undersea communication cables have long Sources had considerable strategic military and polit- Blair, Bruce, and Henry Kendall. 1990. ical value. Countries controlling access to “Accidental Nuclear War.” Scientific American cable networks—such as the British to at 263 (6): 19–24. Esterbrook, Mark. 2005. “Underground Facility least 1930—enjoyed a substantial military Analysis Center.” [Online article; retrieved benefit with this first means of global com- September 2005.] http://www.military munication. -geospatial-technology.com/article Submarine cable communication dates to .cfm?DocID=1042. about 1850, when the first short-range cables Federation of American Scientists. “C3I: Communications, Command, Control and allowed telegraph signals to be sent under Intelligence, United States Nuclear Forces.” bodies of water, such as the English Channel, [Online information; retrieved September in 1851. After several failures, the first suc- 2005.] http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/ cessful transatlantic cable was laid in 1866 usa/c3i/index.html. and soon others followed in other major Federation of American Scientists. “U.S. Strate- bodies of water, culminating with the gic Command Command Center.” [Online information; retrieved September 2005.] transpacific cable of 1903. The first successful http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/ transatlantic telephone (TAT-1) cable was c3i/cmdctr.htm. laid in 1956. By 1988, the TAT-8 cable em - Free Republic. “A List of All Known ‘Cold War’ ployed fiber optic construction that provided Nuclear Bunkers and Subterranean far greater capacity. Military use of such Complexes in the U.K.” [Online information; retrieved September 2005.] http://209 cables dates from their very beginning. .157.64.200/focus/f-news/873564/posts. The first specifically military undersea Hough, Henry W. 1970. NORAD Command Post: telegraph cable was laid during the Crimean The City Inside of Cheyenne Mountain. Denver, War in the mid-1850s and traversed the Black CO: Green Mountain Press. Sea from Romania to the Crimean Peninsula. McCamley, N. J. 1998. Secret Underground Though it operated for only a few months Cities: An Account of Some of Britain’s Subter- ranean Defence, Factory and Storage Sites due to the crude technology of the time, it in the Second World War. Barnsley, UK: Leo enabled connection with European land tele- Cooper. graph networks, and thus put London and Paris in direct touch with their troops in the

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field. Shortly thereafter, the Indian Mutiny of From 1899 to 1902, the U.S. Army devel- 1857 convinced the British of the need to oped inter-island submarine cable communi- develop rapid imperial communications. cations in the Philippines. Several vessels They soon developed an “all-Red” subma- were converted to lay cable, and hundreds of rine telegraph network to tie their empire miles were put in place. Eventually 1,300 together. The first important link in 1870 miles of undersea cable (and forty-one cable connected London to India by way of Gibral- stations) connected with hundreds of miles tar, Malta, Suez, and Aden—all British of land telegraph to tie American military colonies—and then across the Indian Ocean forces together. Only in 1902 with the cessa- to Bombay. By the turn of the century, sub- tion of most fighting were the lines opened marine telegraph cables reached virtually for limited commercial use. Both the Army around the world, and Britain had funded and Navy developed their own small fleets about 75 percent of their length. Government of dedicated cable vessels (including military) messages received prior- The British and Americans each opened ity transmission and often cut rates. Further, transpacific cables in 1903, the delay after the government was empowered to take the Atlantic cables being due to the great over submarine cables in time of emergency. distances and lack of multiple intermediate British colonial (as opposed to British) landing points. By 1904, an undersea cable troop concentrations could now be con- and 107-mile wireless telegraph link com- trolled from London, stationed where pleted an all-American communications needed, and sent where required rapidly— route (previous lines included a run through as they often were. And orders could be part of Canada) from Alaska to Washington more easily changed when shifting troop DC and elsewhere in the continental United concentrations could maintain at least occa- States. By 1906 the Washington-Alaska Mil- sional contact with home commanders. itary Cable and Telegraph System was han- Submarine telegraphy allowed for a smaller dling more than 300,000 messages per but far more mobile number of troops to year—about 20 percent of them military in be stationed abroad, and at considerable nature. The lines, constructed at a cost of savings. Royal Navy conversion to steam— around $2 million (or about $40 million in and thus the need for maintaining coaling 2006 dollars), were maintained by the Army stations at various points around the Signal Corps. world—led to another geographic conve- As early as the Spanish-American War (if nience when telegraph cable stations were not earlier yet), cables were recognized as often colocated with the coaling stations. important means of military communica- This was a good example in which imperial tions and were regularly cut during hostili- administrative needs, commercial trade pos- ties. Military use of cables required coded sibilities, and both military and naval com- messages given the number of people munication all conveniently coalesced in a involved in handling the traffic. By the turn single system. Other countries, including the of the twentieth century the U.S. Navy United States, had to rely on British cable claimed to have a superior coding system in networks for much of their international place—and used it to keep in touch with communication. naval attachés during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.

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While the inception of wireless radio after repairing problems, rarely possible with 1900 began to siphon off some of the cable satellites. Increasingly both modes are used traffic, ironically the newer mode of trans- to back up the other. mission underscored a special value of the During the 1970s, American submarines old—communication security. At the incep- began placing taps on undersea cables along tion of World War I, the British cut five Ger- the Soviet Pacific coast. Submarines had to man telegraph cables in the English Channel, return every few months to pick up tapes thus forcing the enemy to use radio—which that recorded the communications. Soon could be intercepted and decoded. (At the similar “listening pods” were implanted on time there was no capacity for tapping cables other Soviet cables, able to pick up magnetic to learn what was being communicated.) emanations from the cable without penetrat- Among the intercepted radio signals was ing it. The mission was ultimately betrayed the infamous German “Zimmermann” tele - by a spy, and the recording device is now at gram, which was the proximate cause of the KGB Museum of Security Service in the American entry into World War I early in Lubyanka in Moscow. But additional taps 1917. continued for several years. The “Ivy Bells” Even as cable technology improved, how- tapping project, for example, allegedly ever, liabilities remained. Chief among them involved hooking up a nuclear radioisotope- were the landing sites for cables where the powered pod (which could be 20 feet long) system became highly vulnerable to natural containing tape recorders, which was left in or manmade service cut-offs. Cable landing place for almost a year between submarine sites were often noted on ships’ maps (to visits to recover the tapes. avoid fouling the cable), which reduced their This would be harder to do with the giga- security that much more. bytes per second flowing through a modern Maps of the world’s submarine cables fiber cable, as there is no unclassified record- reveal another important political and eco- ing device with anything like the storage nomic, if not military, factor—there are few capacity to record everything, or even a signif- lines to or around Africa or South America. icant fraction of everything, for that long a Most Southern Hemisphere nations (Aus- period in a form that would fit in a pod on the tralia and New Zealand are exceptions) must sea floor. According to published accounts, in communicate with the rest of the world by the early Reagan years the intelligence com- cables connecting Northern Hemisphere munity considered running its own fiber nations. cable to tap sites on the Soviet analog cables With the inception of communication satel- to recover the data in real time, but the end of lites by the 1970s, undersea cables began to the Cold War terminated the need. lose their hegemony over long-distance com- The USS Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class munications. Satellites had greater capacity nuclear submarine, entered the U.S. fleet early and could be designed and launched more in 2005 with enhanced signals communica- rapidly than a cable could be constructed. tions intelligence abilities, reportedly includ- With the later development of fiber optic ing the ability to tap into fiber optic cables. cable in the 1980s, however, the tables slowly Her hull is 100 feet longer than that of her sis- turned again, as the new cables now offered ters, thus allowing stowage of undersea greater capacity, as well as the option of intelligence devices and vehicles. The sub-

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marine’s ability to tap fiber optic cables, The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was created however, may be unique in the fleet. on 13 May 1912, superseding an air battalion Christopher H. Sterling of the Royal Engineers formed just the year See also Communication Satellites; European before as part of the British army. RFC pio- Late Nineteenth-Century Wars; Field, Cyrus neering began with an experiment that year W. (1819–1892); Signals Intelligence using spark-gap radio equipment at an air- (SIGINT); Submarine Communications field at Hendon (near London) transmitting to an aircraft circling overhead. Sources On 15 September 1914 the RFC made its Finn, Bernard S., and Vary T. Coates. 1979. “War and National Security.” In A Retrospective first use of wireless telegraphy during obser- Technology Assessment: The Transatlantic Cable vation flights over enemy artillery positions. of 1866, 97–116. San Francisco: San Francisco During the Battle of the Aisne, the RFC made Press. its first operational use of aerial photogra- Haigh, K. R. 1968. “United States Army, United phy. The corps was responsible for observa- States Navy.” In Cableships and Submarine tion balloons as well as artillery spotting Cables, 285–299. London: Adlard Coles. Hecht, Jeff. 1999. “Submarine Cables: Covering over the Western Front. Reports were origi- the Ocean Floor with Glass (1970–1995).” In nally dropped to the ground tied to rocks. City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics, 201– Early RFC aircraft radios were heavy and 215. New York: Oxford University Press. cumbersome and difficult to operate, and Lumpkin, John J. 2005. “USS Carter Will Be Able only received signals from the ground. As to Eavesdrop.” Associated Press, February 18. radios improved, however, low-flying RFC Russel, Edgar. 1902. “The Military Cable System aircraft equipped with two-way wireless of the Philippines.” Transactions of the cooperated with ground forces and attacked American Institute of Electrical Engineers May enemy forces, facilities, and airfields. 28: 629–641. The RFC also researched how wireless Schenck, Herbert H., and Leo Waldick. 1991. telegraphy could be used to help defend 1990 World’s Submarine Telephone Cable Systems. Washington, DC: National against German airplane or Zeppelin bomb- Telecommunications and Information ing raids. By 1916 the corps had developed Administration. a lightweight aircraft receiver and a Marconi Sontag, Sherry, and Christopher Drew. 1998. half-kilowatt ground transmitter, which Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American could be located on aerodromes in raid- Submarine Espionage. New York: Public Affairs Press. threatened areas. The aircraft receiver was Williams, Charles E., Jr. 1978. “Communications tuned in advance, and the pilot had to unreel and Crisis Actions.” [Online article; retrieved a 150-foot aerial from its drum and switch it June 2006.] http://www.airpower.maxwell on. Initial trials in May 1916 demonstrated .af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1978/ that signals were clearly heard up to ten mar-apr/williams.html. miles. Further development by November provided clear signals over twenty miles. Pilots could be informed about enemy air- United Kingdom: Royal Air Force craft and attack them before they could bomb Britain. Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) has pio- After 1917, much RFC wireless training neered many modes of communication, both took place in Canada (at Camp Borden, tactical and strategic, during its long history. Ontario). After considerable debate, the

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RFC and the Royal Navy Flying Service plines. It comprised radio communications were merged to form the Royal Air Force (air and ground); radio aids to navigation; on coequal status with the army on 1 April radio as an airborne bombing or interception 1918. aid; airborne and ground radars (both those Between the wars, the RAF was dramati- used for fighter control and for air traffic cally scaled down in equipment and person- management); electronic intelligence and nel, only beginning to rebuild in the late electronic warfare; and teleprinter, telegraph, 1930s. Technical development was also and telephone services. The worldwide slowed, save for the innovation of radar on intercommand telecommunications system the eve of World War II. On Britain’s entry was supplemented by an air traffic control into the war on 3 September 1939, only one organization with its associated communica- of 135 RAF squadrons was devoted to com- tions systems and approach aids, and main- munications. It became the RAF Signals tenance organizations to address the needs Organization, and much of its emphasis was of both ground and airborne systems. But on the vital radar technology. there was little centralized control over all of On 1 January 1940 the RAF introduced these functions. identification, friend or foe (IFF) signals to Post Design Services (PDS) was formed at help identify bomber, coastal, and fighter the Telecommunications Research Establish- aircraft on radar screens. Radio likewise ment at Malvern during the war to provide a played a central role in the Battle of Britain. direct link between the designers of electronic On 7 October 1940, No. 80 (Signals) Wing equipment in the laboratories and the service became the RAF’s first electronic warfare users in the field. The organization was unit. As an example of what could be accom- manned by civilian scientists and serving plished, on 13–14 November 1940, two air- officers and worked predominantly in the craft of the Wireless Intelligence and fields of airborne radar and ground control Development Unit made the first direct interception. In 1946, PDS was disbanded attack on enemy navigational radar installa- and a successor organization, the Radio Intro- tions on the Cherbourg Peninsula by homing duction Branch (RIB), was formed at RAF in on their transmission signals. Medmenham. In 1952, RIB became the Radio The RAF developed an extensive tele- Introduction Unit responsible for the intro- printer network linking its ground control duction of all airborne and ground radio sys- and airfield facilities. Communications hubs tems. The unit had a complement of ten for these and voice communications were officers dealing with airfield approach aids, located in several underground centers airborne tail warning, Doppler navigation, around the country, interconnected by coax- weapon aiming, and airborne interception ial cable and high-frequency radio links. for various RAF aircraft Links to aircraft included both voice (for In the 1950s, No. 90 (Signals) Group pro- fighters) and telegraphy (more for transports vided a single focus for all signals matters, and bombers), both using code systems for including the design, manufacture, installa- security. On 18 July 1944 VHF radios fitted in tion, operation, and maintenance of RAF sig- tanks were first used to call for close air sup- nals systems. Its principal units included the port during the ongoing breakout from the Central Signals Establishment and the Radio D-Day landing areas. By 1945, the term “sig- Engineering Unit. No. 90 Group became the nals” in the RAF spanned different disci- Signals Command on 3 November 1958. But

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British military forces were drawing down tion is now home to the Directorate of Engi- around the world, and on 1 April 1964 a uni- neering Interoperability, which is part of the fied Ministry of Defence (MOD) was created, Defence Communications Services Agency. and the Air Ministry became MOD’s Air Third, the main operation of the Skynet Force Department. A common signals staff Satellite Communications System, which serving all three services was one outcome. offers overseas formations telegraph, data, The RAF signals staff was reduced to just and speech communications, is controlled one branch, and Signals Command reverted by the RAF Command. RAF Oakhanger is to group status once again, within Strike the focal point of military satellite communi- Command, on 1 January 1969. Further inter- cations in the United Kingdom. During 1998, service rationalization led to the RAF assum- three Skynet 4 Stage 2 satellites entered ser- ing responsibility for all strategic defense vice. The RAF also manages the NATO 4 networks. Continued reductions in British series of satellites. Skynet 5 is expected to commitments overseas meant the return of enter service in 2008 and provide the next overseas garrisons and headquarters, and a generation of flexible and survivable satellite consequent reduction in needed telecommu- communications services for military use. nications. 90 Group became Support Com- Robust military satellite communications mand’s Signals Headquarters. services are essential to support inter- and By the early twenty-first century, RAF sig- intratheater information exchange and to nals communications (still a part of the RAF ensure that deployed and mobile forces are Strike Command) could be divided into not constrained by the need to remain within three categories. First, there is a large com- the range of terrestrial communications. RAF plex of high-frequency transmitter and command operating procedures are moni- receiver facilities in Britain, including com- tored on all networks to ensure high stan- munications centers with automatic message dards are maintained. routing equipment. Operations include those The RAF Tactical Communications Wing on behalf of Strike Command, the Military (TCW, formed in 1965 and taking its present Air Traffic Organisation, the North Atlantic name in 1969) installs, operates, and main- Treaty Organization (NATO), and the mete- tains transportable tactical communications orological office. and information systems in support of RAF Second, the RAF Signals Staff operate both squadrons and units deployed worldwide automatic and manual message relay cen- for what can include support of United ters, and also manage the RAF’s general pur- Nations operations or acting as part of the pose telephone network. For the use of all NATO Reaction Forces. Its capability can be British armed forces, MOD has procured a divided into three main areas: bare base fixed telecommunications network called operation, tactical satellite communications Boxer under an outside contract, which will (with equipment delivered by small vehi- save the increasing expense of renting lines cles), and trunk communications. The last is from the private sector. RAF Henlow has achieved by using the new RAF Trans- been a ground-training base specializing in portable Telecommunications System, which electronics since the end of World War II and enables the switching of voice and data ser- was for many years the base for the RAF vices around a mesh network, effectively Signals Engineering Establishment. The sta- creating a wide area network extension of

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what is available in Britain. TCW has about http://www.armedforces.co.uk/raf/ 450 personnel. listings/l0051.html. To reduce risk of compromise, all RAF communications facilities are designed to United Kingdom: Royal Corps carry classified information and are regu- of Signals larly checked for communications electrical security. Their signals operation has a large As the chief information and communications engineering design staff of engineers, techni- provider for the British army, the Royal Corps cians, and draftsmen. Manufacturing of Signals deploys everywhere the army goes. resources include a general mechanical engi- The corps provides communications links neering and calibration capacity at RAF throughout the army’s command-and-control Henlow, plus a facility for the system design, system. While individual units are responsi- development, and installation of certain air- ble for their own internal communications, borne signals role equipment. most communications from brigade level and An RAF signals museum at RAF Henlow above are the responsibility of the corps. In is open on occasion. modern terms, Royal Signals acts as a signif- Christopher H. Sterling icant “force multiplier.” See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; Britain, Battle of (1940); Defence Communi- Origins cations Service Agency (DCSA); Falklands The Royal Corps of Signals was established Conflict (1982); Identification, Friend or Foe on 28 June 1920, but its ancestry is as a direct (IFF); North Atlantic Treaty Organization descendant of the Royal Engineers. The (NATO) Communications & Information Royal Engineers’ interest in military com- Systems Agency; Teleprinter/Teletype; United Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; munications began during the Crimean War World War I; World War II; Y Service (1854–1856), when they were first assigned the task to build and operate electric tele- Sources McLaughlan, S. 2003 “TCW: The Tactical graph links. Telegraphers and signalers Communications Wing.” [Online informa- gained further active field experience during tion retrieved April 2006.] http://www.raf the Abyssinian War of 1867. .mod .uk/history/. Partly because of the experience gained Nutting, C. W. 1942. “Signals and Radio.” during these two campaigns, authority was Flying: Special Royal Air Force Issue Septem- ber: 138–140. given in 1869 to form a separate signal wing Reader, Dennis. The Sound of Trumpets: at the Royal Engineer Depot at Chatham. History of the RAF Signals Service, 1945– During 1870, “C” Telegraph Troop was 1975 (in preparation). [Online information; formed and was responsible for providing retrieved March 2006.] http://members telegraph communications for the field army. .aol.com/ DenReader/RAF_History.html. This troop saw active service in the Zulu Royal Air Force, Air Historical Branch. Various dates. Royal Air Force Signals in the Second War of 1879, where the heliograph first World War. 7 vols. London: Air Ministry. gained recognition. Many heliographs were Royal Air Force History. Home page. [Online made in India, and the device would be used information; retrieved March 2006.] in combat from the northwest frontier of http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/. India through World War I and into the Royal Air Force. “RAF Communications.” [Online information; retrieved March 2006.] desert campaign of World War II.

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The Royal Engineer Telegraph Battalion on to serve during the next war two decades was formed in 1884 and took part in the Nile later. The standard army field telephone Campaign and later played an important incorporated a buzzer unit and a Morse key role in the Ashanti Campaign of 1895–1896. so it could be used to send and receive Morse During this campaign the Telegraph Battal- if the circuit was too noisy for voice trans- ion hacked a path for an overhead line from missions. the Cape coast to Prahsu, covering 72 miles Visual signaling methods included flags, through jungle. As members of the Tele- lamps and lights, and the heliograph. Signal graph Battalion staggered out of the jungle, flags were normally blue and white, and they confronted King Prempeh, who was so lightweight silk flags could, with a compe- surprised by their unexpected appearance tent operator, reach about twelve words per that he surrendered his forces (his throne is minute. Although visual signaling was gen- now displayed in the Royal Signals Museum erally unsuitable for trench warfare (because at Blandford). the operator had to show himself), in 1915 a The corps’ first wireless telegraph com- system of signaling discs and shutters was panies were formed in 1907, followed a year introduced that could be operated from later with establishment of the Royal Engi- within a trench and read using a periscope. neer Signal Service, which became responsi- The heliograph, flags, and lamps were espe- ble for all forms of army communication. cially valuable when the army was moving too quickly to establish a telephone network. World War I The trench signaling lamp featured a bull’s- At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the eye lens to concentrate the light and a Morse British army had few wireless sets. These key to switch it on and off. Useful in signal- spark transmitters operated on long wave ing from trench to trench, operators could and were cumbersome, heavy, and unreli- see its signal using a periscope or telescope. able. The Royal Flying Corps had begun to It was always dangerous to transmit toward use wireless to direct artillery fire. A Marconi the battlefield, as this attracted enemy fire. transmitter was fit into an aircraft that Finally, many traditional methods were in allowed sending of a Morse signal to be continual use. Dogs carried messages be - picked up on the ground. By 1915 trench tween trenches, and horses, mules, and dogs sets were used on the Western Front but suf- were all used to lay wire and cables. At var- fered as the enemy could easily overhear the ious periods during the war, more than messages. 20,000 pigeons and 370 pigeoneers were in Thousands of miles of cable and line were the war zone. Very often pigeons were the used during the four years of war, constantly sole means of communication. being repaired or replaced due to damage by The idea to establish a separate signal shell fire and movement of troops. French corps was considered in 1918, but various civilian telephones were pressed into front- institutional and policy obstacles delayed line service, but were not designed to oper- action until 28 June 1920, when a royal war- ate in damp, muddy conditions. Equipment rant gave the king’s approval to its forma- slowly improved. One field switchboard was tion. George V conferred on the new corps self-contained with its own instrument, call- the honor of using the title “Royal” on 5 ing generator, night bell, and speaking set. August 1920. During the 1920s and 1930s, Having provided excellent service, it went the corps increased its strength and had per-

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sonnel serving in a variety of overseas sta- bers of the corps served in every theater, tions of the empire. The largest portion of and by 1945 the corps had a serving strength corps personnel were overseas, nearly a of 8,500 officers and 142,500 soldiers. third in India. Nearly 4,400 members of Royal Signals were killed. World War II Once again, the British army was ill Since 1945 equipped when war broke out in September The corps played a full and active part in 1939. Royal Signals units traveled to France numerous postwar campaigns including with the British Expeditionary Force, though operation of the British Mandate in Palestine some of the signalers were not fully trained (1945–1948); the long antiguerrilla campaign and much of the equipment was obsolescent. in Malaya (1949–1960); the Korean War As happened two decades earlier, the civil- (1950–1953); the Suez Crisis (1956); and var- ian telephone system was used in France ious operations in Cyprus, Borneo, Aden, and Belgium as messages were less likely to the Arabian Peninsula, Kenya, and Belize. be intercepted this way. Until the end of the Cold War in 1990, the The long North African campaign (1940– main body of the corps was deployed with 1943) was fast moving, and Royal Signal the British Army of the Rhine confronting units had to lay and retrieve telephone cables the Communist bloc forces, and providing and establish wireless links at great speed. much of the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- Lessons learned in the desert proved invalu- tion’s (NATO) communications infrastruc- able in the mobile warfare that followed the ture. Corps personnel also spearheaded Normandy D-Day landing in June 1944. The individual operations, including the Falk- corps developed an armored command vehi- land Islands campaign (1982); peacekeeping cle equipped with signaling capabilities that force in Lebanon; supervising the peaceful was used throughout campaigns in North transition of Namibia to independence; and Africa and Europe. The Wireless Station No. the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf campaign. Since 10 was the technological wonder of its time then, members of the corps have been and something of a forerunner of modern deployed to East Timor; Kurdistan; the states radio relay equipment. The station was con- of Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo; the western tained in a 2-ton trailer and provided tele- Sahara; Cambodia; Rwanda; Angola; Zaire; phone circuits over a duplex radio path. If and Sierra Leone. the route was longer, up to seven relay sta- The modern corps transmits, in a secure tions could be inserted in the chain. and timely manner, facsimile, voice, tele- As the Allies moved through north- graph, and data—it is, in effect, the nervous west Europe, Royal Signals laid hundreds of system of the British army. As of the early miles of telephone and telegraph cables twenty-first century, the corps operates three and made use of civilian networks wherever main types of battlefield equipment. The possible. Communications to the United “Clansman” combat net radio system equip- Kingdom were made via a cable laid under ment is being replaced by the “Bowman” the English Channel connected to signal sta- system, which uses secure voice as the prin- tions at Bayeaux and Cherbourg. All fighting cipal means for command and control. Trunk forces used machines to encrypt messages, communication in the corps uses “Ptarmi- the British version being the Typex. Mem- gan” and “Euromux” equipment to provide

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battlefield-area coverage communications. Mirrors; North Atlantic Treaty Organization These provide secure mobile telephones (NATO) Communications & Information across the battlefield, as well as to brigade Systems Agency; Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE); headquarters and higher. Finally, corps forces Suez Crisis (1956); TELCOM Mobile also provide facsimile and data and satellite Wireless Units; Telegraph; World War I; communications. They provide operational World War II theater as well as strategic links back to head- quarters. Equipment can range from small Sources man-pack sets to large vehicle-transportable Adams, R. M. 1970. Through to 1970: Royal Signals Golden Jubilee. London: Royal Signals equipment. Institution. With officers and soldiers serving in every British Army. “The Royal Signals: Other British and NATO headquarters, Royal Sig- Communications Systems.” [Online informa- nals constitutes about 9 percent of the British tion; retrieved April 2006.] http:// www army with Regular and Territorial Army .armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/ l0106.html#ARMY%20FIXED%20TELE Regiments (Reserve Component), each gen- COMMUNICATIONS%20SYSTEMS. erally consisting of between three and up to Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal six squadrons, with between 600 and 1,000 Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps personnel. The strength of Royal Signals as (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: of the early twenty-first century is about 900 Helion. officers, 8,200 regular soldiers, and 5,300 ter- Nalder, R. F. H. 1953. The History of British Army Signals in the Second World War. London: ritorial soldiers. Royal Signals units are per- Royal Signals Institution. manently based in Germany, Holland, and Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: Belgium, from where they provide the nec- A History of Its Antecedents and Development. essary command-and-control communica- London: Royal Signals Institution. tions and electronic warfare support for both Royal Corps of Signals. “A Brief History.” [Online information; retrieved May 2006.] the British army and other NATO forces. http://www.army.mod.uk/royalsignals/ Royal Signals units are also based in Cyprus, history.html. the Falkland Islands, Belize, Gibraltar, Royal Engineers Museum and Library. Afghanistan, and Iraq. The size, role, and “Telegraph and Signals.” [Online informa- deployment of Royal Signals units are orga- tion; retrieved May 2006.] http://www nized to meet the command-and-control .remuseum.org.uk/rem_his_special.htm #signals. requirements of the formation commanders. Warner, Philip. 1989. The Vital Link: The Story of Because of this, no two units have the same Royal Signals 1945–1985. London: Leo organization or role. Corps headquarters is Cooper. at the Royal School of Signals located at Blandford Camp in Dorset. Danny Johnson United Kingdom: Royal Navy See also Blandford Camp; Boer War Wireless (1899–1902); Defence Communications The Royal Navy traces its history back a half- Service Agency (DCSA); European Late millennium. Along with its many other inno- Nineteenth-Century Wars; Falklands vations, the British Admiralty has sometimes Conflict (1982); Golden Arrow Sections; resisted but more usually embraced Gulf War (1990–1991); Heliograph and improvements in communications.

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Days of Sail In 1888 the Admiralty announced plans The “Navy Royal” of Henry VIII in the early for the first formal training in signaling 1500s was the forerunner of the modern (heretofore it had been learned on the job), to Royal Navy, which dates to the mid-seven- include the traditional flags, various light teenth century. A series of wars against the signals for nighttime operations, mechanical Dutch and French helped to hone naval semaphores, and electric telegraphy, among practice and ship design. The first naval sig- other modes. Courses were set up at both the nal book (with colored drawings of fifteen Portsmouth and Devonport (and later flags) appeared in 1673 in the midst of these Chatham) naval bases. Training lasted for wars. A published and more comprehensive two months, about half focused on the the- book—though still a private venture— ory of signaling overall and the other half appeared in the early 1700s. As its wartime devoted to practical training. These became naval strength increased from 40,000 in the more organized signal schools in the mid wars of 1739–1748 to 150,000 at the peak of 1890s, and became centralized in Portsmouth. the Napoleonic Wars, the navy required use of notorious “press gangs” to obtain the Rise of Radio needed sailors. At the same time the Royal Navy became a In 1776 Admiral Lord Richard Howe tried center of early wireless telegraphy experi- to reduce the growing number of confusing mentation, chiefly by then Captain Henry nonstandard flag signals to create an inte- Jackson. By 1898 the navy had formed an grated system, one he further revised in experimental wireless telegraphy depart- 1782. The Royal Navy adopted a related but ment operating on HMS Defiance for contin- more streamlined signal flag system devised uing experiments that achieved increasing by Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham in 1800 transmission distance. Some worried that (modified in 1803 and 1812). The Popham wireless transmission might threaten a ship’s system proved vital when used by Admiral powder magazine. In 1899, however, Mar- Horatio Nelson in his victory at the Battle of coni apparatus was installed on four ships Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. during fleet exercises and these removed For a century, from 1815 to 1914, the Royal most doubts about both the safety and value Navy generally ruled supreme and greatly of the new technology. aided the expanding empire. Wooden ships But intership interference was a serious gave way to iron and then steel as sails were problem (tuning to specific frequencies was replaced by paddles and then screw propul- not yet being practiced), which limited the sion. Through much of this period, however, value of wireless. naval signaling remained fairly static, using While the Navy cooperated with Guglielmo a book of flag signals issued in 1857 and Marconi and utilized his equipment, by the adopted by many other nations over the next early 1900s military and commercial needs three decades. Various night signals of flash- and equipment began to increasingly diverge. ing lights were continually being perfected, Magnetic detectors of wireless signals re - eventually resulting in the late nineteenth placed the fragile coherers, and antennas century in the Aldis lamp, which remained (aerials) hung between ships’ masts became in active service for ship-to-ship communica- more common. Radio equipment was now tion for nearly a century. powered by the ship’s generators rather than

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the troublesome batteries used earlier, and man wireless traffic provided the Royal wireless capability was increasingly found Navy’s Grand Fleet with advance notice that on ships as small as destroyers. The Wireless the Germans were moving into the North Telegraphy Branch was established in 1907 Sea at the end of May 1916. But radio played and the signaling schools extended their cur- a lesser role in the Battle of Jutland itself, as riculum accordingly. The Navy soon (1909– British commanders relied on traditional flag 1913) developed several dedicated shore signals—with varied results. The growing wireless stations for fleet communications importance of wireless led in 1917 to elevat- (parallel to what the U.S. Navy was doing). ing the Signal Section to a division. Later Signal officers (often admirals’ flag lieu- the same year a committee was established tenants) now controlled message distri - to work out interference between army and bution from origin to reception. Wireless navy stations. re search and experimentation continued, After World War I, vacuum tube (valve)– now aboard the three hulks making up HMS powered equipment began to replace older Vernon moored in Portsmouth (it moved arc and spark-gap devices. An “empire” ashore, though retaining the ship designa- chain of high-frequency land stations was tion, in 1923). By World War I, British sub- established at various points throughout the marines carried wireless apparatus, though British colonies to aid in naval communica- it could generally cover only about 50 miles. tion. After considerable debate, signaling The Royal Navy’s first direction-finding (meaning with flags and lights) and wireless equipment arrived with the inception of operators were merged as radio experimen- World War I in 1914. This proved vital in tation and equipment improvement contin- keeping track of the German High Seas Fleet ued. Increased focus on line telephone links as well as in locating and monitoring Ger- for naval stations also took place. man wireless transmitters on both ships and land. Capture of codebooks from the Ger- World War II man cruiser Magdeburg in 1914 aided the During World War II, two Cunard–White process hugely. The Navy’s Room 40 soon Star liners, Queen Mary and the new Queen became the center of this code-breaking Elizabeth, were treated as naval auxiliaries process. Y Service monitoring stations were when carrying troops and thus carried and also soon established. The Admiralty estab- used naval ciphers. They (and several other lished the Government Code and Cipher large liners) were known in the service as School in 1919 (to help break foreign codes “the monsters,” as their displacement ex - while improving the security of British ceeded any naval fighting ship. Wireless ciphers), which was transferred to the For- crews were expanded when Prime Minister eign Office in 1923. Winston Churchill was aboard, as he was on Wireless played an important part in the several transatlantic occasions for meetings battles of Coronel, where a German squad- with President Franklin Roosevelt. ron almost wiped out a weaker British force, Most wartime fleet radio work was in the and the subsequent fight off the Falkland low and medium frequencies as VHF radio Islands, where the British loss was avenged. was still experimental. The American TBS The British squadron steaming to the Falk- (“talk between ships”) system was later lands observed radio silence to mask its adopted and used VHF. Telegraphy code movements. Likewise, monitoring of Ger- was preferred over voice so that a physical

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copy of orders resulted and because circuits Vanguard (the service’s final battleship) when were not designed for clear voice signaling. she served in 1947 as the royal yacht for a Most messages were encrypted to discour- visit to Australia. Royal Navy units were age enemy listening, and far more went from involved with United Nations forces in the the Admiralty in London (often by a broad- Korean War, again using American signaling cast system) to ships at sea rather than the systems and codebooks. In Europe the North other way around. Ships used a random Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was two-letter call to hide their identity from taking hold and naval forces were swinging enemy listeners, and transmitters could over to use of VHF (while the U.S. Navy operate on multiple frequencies, usually at was making the transition to UHF). Com- the lowest possible power (again to discour- bined naval exercises helped to test changing age enemy monitoring). modes of communicating. Many were under Radio (and other modes of communica- the auspices of the developing NATO com- tion) contributed crucially to several Royal mand through its Allied Naval Communica- Navy engagements of the war. The sinking tions Agency based in London. of the German Graf Spee off Montevideo in By the late 1950s, Royal Navy communica- December 1939 was aided by radio decep- tions had begun to shift to more automated tion, suggesting the shadowing British cruis- operation as well as developing early data ers had been more seriously damaged than communication links. Reliable Radio Tele- was the case. The sinking of Bismarck early in type initiated automated operations in 1955. 1941 was made possible when the German The first Royal Navy computer, Signal Trans- battleship broke radio silence, assisting in mitting Receiving and Distributing equip- giving away her location. Atlantic convoys ment, appeared in the Admiralty in 1957. were shepherded by radio and Aldis lamp, The Integrated Communication System, all the time communicating with the Admi- which entered service in the mid-1960s, ralty. HMS Bulolo became the Royal Navy’s incorporated broadband as well as central- first specially fitted headquarters ship (soon ized control and monitoring. By 1963, the followed by three others, with the design Royal Navy’s radio equipment used single- shared with the U.S. Navy), loaded with all sideband technology. means of communication. She was on hand As Britain drew down its commitments for D-Day (6 June 1944). In March 1945, and forces from “East of Suez,” however, Royal Navy units joined the American navy demands on naval communication dimin- for the final months of the Pacific War, inte- ished and change came more slowly. Still, by grating communication links and ciphers the 1990s, command, control, and communi- and codebooks with the larger U.S. force. cations systems aboard naval vessels allowed a variety of modes of communica- Postwar Change tion, most of it increasingly digital and utiliz- The postwar period saw extensive ship-to- ing communication satellites. The 1982 shore radio systems merged with the mer- Falklands War (and the Gulf War eight years chant navy in 1946 in a move to trim costs. later) showed the value of satellite links over High-speed Morse automation replaced great distances from London to the fighting hand-operated telegraphy links. Royal Navy squadron. Electronic countermeasure equip- use of high-quality voice, radio teletype, and ment became more common and effective. As facsimile services was tested aboard HMS with the U.S. Navy, Royal Navy ships began

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to employ women in communication roles at The U.S. Marine Corps, the American mili- sea, in part due to a growing shortage of tary service first formed in 1775 and perma- men. But fewer operators were needed with nently established in 1798, has always sought the increasingly automated, digital, and modes of communication that work effec- Internet-based modes of signaling. tively in sea, land, and (as of 1913) air oper- Christopher H. Sterling ations. Organizationally, the corps is part of See also Aldis Lamp; Atlantic, Battle of the the U.S. Navy, providing its seaborne military (1939–1945); Bletchley Park; Code Breaking; strength. The Navy, in turn, supplies many of Defiance, HMS; Falklands Conflict (1982); the support functions for the corps. Marines Flaghoist; Flags; Government Code & have been committed to combat in virtually Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); every American military action from the High-Speed Morse; Jackson, Henry B. (1855–1929); Jutland, Battle of (1916); nineteenth century into the twenty-first. Marconi, Guglielmo (1874–1937); Amphibious warfare techniques were Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815); Night developed in the years between the world Signals; North Atlantic Treaty Organization wars (the Fleet Marine Force was formed in (NATO) Communications & Information 1933) and proved invaluable in the Pacific Systems Agency; Popham, Home Riggs (1762–1820); Radio Silence; Semaphore during World War II. Beginning in 1942, the (Mechanical Telegraphs); Single Sideband Marine Corps used Native American code (SSB); Talk Between Ships (TBS); Trafalgar, talkers for many of its island radio links— Battle of (21 October 1805); Ultra; World War and the Japanese never could decipher the I, World War II; Y Service messages. By the war’s end in 1945, the Sources corps had grown to include six divisions, Broome, Jack E. 1955. Make a Signal! London: five air wings, and supporting troops (inc- Putnam. luding communication units)—nearly a half- Broome, Jack E. 1973. Make Another Signal: A million Marines. At the outbreak of the History of Naval Signals from Salamis to World Korean War in mid-1950, a much-diminished War II. London: William Kimber. Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power. Marine Corps had no unit of any size New York: Stein & Day. deployed in the Far East. After three years of Hill, J. R., ed. 1995. The Oxford Illustrated History war, however, corps strength ballooned back of the Royal Navy. Oxford, UK: Oxford up to nearly a quarter-million men in June University Press. 1953. Marine use of ground-support heli- Kent, Barrie. 1993. Signal! A History of Signalling in the Royal Navy. Clanfield, UK: Hyden copters in Korea greatly expanded its capa- House. bilities and communications. Palmer, Michael A. 2006. Command at Sea: Naval The corps played a key role in the 1970s’ Command and Control Since the Sixteenth development of the Rapid Deployment Force, Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- a multiservice organization created to ensure sity Press. a flexible, timely military response around Royal Navy. “History.” [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] http://www the world. The Maritime Pre-Positioning .royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/ Ships program was begun in late 1979 to pro- nav.3839. vide three Marine amphibious brigades ready for airlift to potential crisis areas where they would unite with previously U.S. Marine Corps positioned ships carrying their equipment

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(including communications) and supplies. extending bandwidth on the battlefield. They Marine air units averaged 60 percent fixed are also used within the Defense Information wing and 40 percent helicopter aircraft able Systems Agency for meshed Voice over Inter- to operate from small carriers at sea or land net Protocol experimentation and Quality of bases. Service testing. Finally, the On the Move By the 1990s, on any given day, about Combat Operations Center is being devel- 175,000 Marines were deployed away from oped to provide both voice and data commu- their home bases. During the decade, the nications to the infantry battalion Marines were “sent in” to some crisis spot commander for surface and vertical employ- more than fifty times—on average, the ment during ship-to-objective maneuvers. Marine Corps is called upon once every five Marines also provide defense personnel weeks. Marine Air-Ground Task Forces for American embassies abroad. formed into four separate Marine Expedi- Christopher H. Sterling tionary Units deploy for six months, each See also Code Talkers; Communication having an average strength of 2,200 Marines Satellites; Defense Information Systems and sailors, and their own communications Agency (DISA); U.S. Navy capabilities. Consisting of three to five amphibious assault ships, they move freely Sources Bartlett, Merrill L., and Jack Sweetman. 2001. across the seas. They represent the United The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated States’ most flexible and immediate means of History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute exerting force abroad, one often used by the Press. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Krulak, Victor H. 1984. First to Fight: An Inside and in other combined operations. View of the U.S. Marine Corps. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. As of the early twenty-first century, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. “Com - Marines’ Command, Control, Communica- mand, Control, Communications and tions and Computers (C4) Branch identifies, Computers Branch.” [Online information; analyzes, and introduces new communica- retrieved December 2006. ] http://www tion and information systems technology for .mcwl.usmc.mil/tech/c4.cfm. Marine Corps use. The C4 Branch also sup- ports numerous Marine Corps network developmental tasks and interoperability U.S. Military Telegraph Service demonstrations. Among its ongoing projects (USMTS) is the Expeditionary Tactical Communi- cations System (ETCS), which is an over- During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the-horizon/on-the-move system allowing military leaders recognized that the telegraph shipboard units to be in contact with dis- had become a major factor in the rapid mounted Marines using modified iridium exchange of news, information, and ideas, satellite phones providing networked com- making it indispensable for the conduct of munications with a push-to-talk voice and military operations. At the outbreak of the position location capability. ETCS began to war, all the telegraph facilities of both the deploy in mid-2006. Network Services pro- North and South were in the hands of private vide a primary node for testing the “last individuals. In April 1861, with full cooper- mile” in secure wireless communications for ation of the telegraph companies in the

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North, the government assumed control of which often slowed communications. Some all telegraph lines leading into Washington commanders were suspicious of the service DC. Edward S. Sanford, president of the and were careful about the wording of mes- American Telegraph Company, helped orga- sages lest Secretary of War Edwin Stanton nize a small unit in the War Department to disapprove of their decisions. operate and control the lines. Following the By the end of 1862 there were 3,500 miles Union disaster at Bull Run (1861), more effec- of telegraph line in the system. As armies tive efforts were made to harness the existing moved, wire had to be put up and taken communications structure by establishing down as well as repaired, an often danger- the United States Military Telegraph Service ous job that resulted in the death or wound- (USMTS). USMTS was to be staffed by civil- ing of one in twelve men engaged in that ians appointed from the commercial tele- work. However, USMTS did not go much graph industry; it led to a unique farther beyond major Army headquarters, organization with an outlook that often con- leaving a communications gap between the flicted with established military norms. frontline units and commanders in the rear. Anson Stager, general superintendent of To fill this gap, the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Western Union, was selected as chief of the under Colonel Albert J. Myer, had estab- service and appointed colonel. He developed lished a small field system using the Beard- a plan for a unified service with telegraph slee telegraph that did not require skill in lines going to the headquarters of every major Morse code. A field train carried flags, night independent command. He recommended signals, rockets, the Beardslee telegraph, and that a bureau be established to purchase and ten miles of wire for use in the combat zone distribute all material needed for the con- (usually a distance of five to eight miles). As struction and operation of the military tele- Union armies moved forward, the field tele- graph lines under the direct control of the graph was employed to establish forward secretary of war. Stager’s plan was approved communications back to the more perma- and USMTS was established as a civilian nent installations of USMTS. bureau attached to the Quartermaster Corps. However, there was much conflict be- The civilian operators were given the status of tween the Signal Corps under Myer and the quartermaster civilian employees. The issue civilians under Stager over who should of civilian status raised many concerns direct the overall system. In 1863 Myer chal- regarding military control and of those men lenged the status of USMTS, arguing that wounded or killed during operations. the Signal Corps should have control of all On 31 January 1862 Congress authorized military communications. Stager countered President Abraham Lincoln to take over any that the reverse should occur. After Myer telegraph and rail lines needed for national incurred the wrath of Stanton and was defense. In February, the Union Army took relieved as chief signal officer, Stager was control of all telegraph lines. To ensure secu- put in charge of all military telegraphy, rity of information, various codes and which by then consisted of more than 950 ciphers were developed to encrypt mes- civilians who operated 5,300 miles of tele- sages. To the frustration of many comman- graph line. ders, only USMTS men understood the keys By 1864 commanders at all levels had and had to take time to encode messages, grown to depend on the military telegraph in

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whatever form it took to command and con- functions have been poorly recorded. Several trol their armies. USMTS laid its lines with- factors account for this dearth, prime among out orders to the various headquarters them that the Navy lacks a separate signals almost before the troops were in position. arm. There has also been a prejudice against However, strict control of codes and ciphers writing by most senior naval officers, as well persisted and Stanton specifically forbade as a long-standing Navy predilection to commanders in the field from interfering ignore history (the Army, Marine Corps, and with the system. Although USMTS com- Air Force have all done better). More recent mand and control was foreign to military is an understandable concern for secrecy. concepts of the day, the system worked and The Navy controls the U.S. Marine Corps, provided instantaneous information regard- which has always had its own specialized ing military operations from the tactical bat- communication needs—these are not tlefield to the White House. included here. Steven J. Rauch See also American Civil War (1861–1865); Army Signals for the Sailing Navy Signal Corps; Beardslee Telegraph; Bull Run, Early American signaling was largely ad hoc Battle of (1861); Lincoln in the Telegraph with variance across individual commanders Office; Myer, Albert James (1828–1880); and battles. Well before formation of an Stager, Anson (1825–1885) American Navy in 1776, flaghoists played a central naval signaling role. While many Sources Bates, David Homer. 1907. Lincoln in the alphabetic and numeric flag systems were Telegraph Office. New York: Century adopted from Britain’s Royal Navy (which, Company. in turn, had borrowed from the French), the Markle, Donald E., ed. 2003. The Telegraph Goes first American adaptation was that of to War. New York: Edmonston Publishing. Thomas Truxton in 1797, which used number Plum, William R. 1882. The Military Telegraph flags in a system of nearly 300 signals. This During the Civil War in the United States. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg (reprinted by was followed by the Barron signal book of Arno Press, 1974). the early 1800s, which was better organized. Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the Modifications appeared over the years. Message Through: A Branch History of the US American naval vessels also employed Army Signal Corps. Washington, DC: U.S. semaphore signaling. While based on early Army Center of Military History. land-based eighteenth- and nineteenth- century systems, both British and French navies helped develop various means of U.S. Navy mechanical and pre-electric telegraph/sema- phore systems, used atop ship masts for years. The U.S. Navy built its initial flag-based sig- The U.S. Navy used masthead semaphores naling on that of the Royal Navy, though the on ironclad or steel vessels, as well as the ever- two services fought one another during the handy and versatile two-flag (often simply American Revolution (1776–1783) and again two-arm) semaphore for many years. The in the War of 1812 (1812–1815). Yet during its basic arm, or identical two-flag, semaphore more than 200 years of operation, the Amer- system remains in occasional use—albeit ican Navy’s signaling and communication perhaps more informally between sailors

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who know this system and find themselves oped by Albert Myer were used between on adjacent ships. From the mid-1800s to the U.S. Army and Navy forces. twentieth century, there were also various “Interior” communication requirements “shape” signal systems operated with vari- are common to all navies. In the seventeenth ous levels of success. and eighteenth centuries, naval forces pro- The Navy was often innovative and at vided communication via men’s voices, least attempted use of almost every known speaking trumpets, speaking tubes, mega- means of communicating at sea, including phones, boatswain’s pipes, and trumpets or use of single- and multishot pyrotechnics— bugles—as well as drums manned by seago- a field in which Edward Very developed a ing marines. In the nineteenth century, reputation. (Indeed, flares are still used alarms (often via bells) were added, along today but generally for safety, rescue, or with various physical means to communi- clandestine operations rather than signal- cate engine requirements from bridge to ing.) Another traditional form of signal that engine room, including engine order was widely used (even after the turn of the telegraphs, mechanical counters, and other twentieth century and introduction of air- devices. By the twentieth century, the sound- ships and aircraft) was message-carrying powered telephone had appeared, along pigeons. with electric telephones, loudspeakers, and The Navy initiated use of telegraphy to tie the ubiquitous 1-MC system with its classic Washington headquarters to various ports opening line: “Now hear this!” Redundancy and bases by the late 1840s. The slow adop- is a feature of all such systems, for command tion of steam propulsion led to further sig- and control must be maintained despite loss naling changes, including new signal books of electric power or other battle damage. If for flag systems and initial use of night sig- the officers and crew of any warship cannot nal lights. The standard Rogers and Black effectively communicate—no matter what signaling system also employed some may have occurred—that ship is, or soon pyrotechnic devices. As the Civil War (1861– will be, lost as an effective fighting platform. 1865) began, however, officers siding with the Confederacy took with them existing Electricity and Wireless at Sea naval signal books, placing Union Navy sig- Experiments with the use of electricity at sea nals in jeopardy. Yet Union naval authorities began in the 1870s. In 1888 Bradley Fiske never took sufficient action to eliminate sig- experimented with ship-to-ship communica- nal confusion with a new signal book, and a tion using conduction. Ardois lights were in number of naval actions were negatively use by the early 1890s, replaced by the Tele- impacted by the persistent signal problem. A photos system of light signaling later in the signal office was only established in 1869, decade. Telegraph connections to even dis- when a new signal book was issued. While tant ports were in place by the same time, more signalmen were trained, no move was though commanders grumbled about losing made to establish a separate signaling corps control and becoming mere messenger boys as existed in the Army. By the 1870s, an for the naval command in Washington. American edition of the International Code The Spanish-American War of 1898 eased communication between naval and pushed naval officials into creating a wide- merchant vessels. Wig-wag flags as devel- spread system of coastal signaling stations. These were connected by telegraph or tele-

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phone lines and could use flags, torches, or The scope and breadth of naval radio signal lights to communicate with nearby activity is illustrated by its many applica- ships. As so often happens, however, the tions in the battle fleet (especially during system fell into disrepair when the war and after the Great White Fleet world cruise emergency abated. The operations of Admi- of 1908–1909); improvements in the Navy’s ral George Dewey in Manila initiated coastal signal service; development of the another aspect of naval signals warfare that Arlington (and soon many other) naval radio would see widespread adoption during the stations, which allowed direct contact with world wars—the cutting of an adversary’s distant ships; and research efforts within the undersea cable communications. But com- Naval Research Laboratory. Soon the Navy munication problems were evident in the was playing a dominant radio role, often infamous Admiral Sampson/Commodore serving as the lead agency in federal deal- Schley controversy that was really the result ings with regional and worldwide concerns. of naval signal operations. Navy Secretary During World War I (1914–1918), radio John Long was not aware that his many equipment rapidly improved and radio com- orders to Commodore Winfield Schley, munication with aircraft was developed, though telegraphed instantly to Tampa, including the early use of radio equipment on Florida, then had to be carried by ship to patrol seaplanes. On U.S. entry into the war reach Schley at sea. Long’s messages often (April 1917), the Navy took control of all wire- took days or weeks to arrive. Meanwhile, less transmitters in the United States, taking Long grew frustrated at Schley’s failure to many off the air for the duration. New higher- respond promptly. No one realized these power (a million watts and more) radio sta- orders were not received as sent, but were tions were built in Annapolis and on the coast more akin to placing an order in a bottle, of France to aid increased Atlantic naval corking it, and tossing it out to sea on the communication. The Navy was focused on Santiago side of Cuba where Schley was convoy protection and antisubmarine war- seeking the Spanish fleet. A postwar investi- fare. Wireless telephone transmitters were gation finally brought all this to light—and mounted on more than a thousand ships and wiser heads saw realized valuable the new were an instrumental part of the antisubma- wireless technology might be. rine campaign. By 1899 a board of naval officers was Between the two world wars, the U.S. appointed to examine the potential of wire- Navy was largely dependent on its own lab- less. Complaints about loss of an individual oratories for radio improvements, as the commander’s control arose again. Initial commercial industry was taken up by application of radio was slow and tentative demand for consumer radio equipment. as the Navy experimented with different That and restricted budgets limited much wireless systems, including those developed expansion of naval radio despite more wide- in other nations (such as the Slaby-Arco spread fleet deployments and war games in devices from Germany). Samuel Robison’s the 1920s and 1930s. first manual of wireless telegraphy for naval signalers appeared in 1906. Only slowly did World War II the Navy focus on American inventors and The global naval operations of World War II equipment. (1939–1945) made naval communications a central aspect of planning and fighting.

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American naval forces worked with Royal absence of at least one kind of communica- Navy units in the Battle of the Atlantic anti- tions—as with observing radio silence by a submarine campaign even before formal fleet at sea—proved essential for operational American entry into the war at the end of surprise and success. 1941. The two services maintained extensive Far more important than in earlier wars detection and communication links ranging was the World War II need for maintaining from the highly technical to the basic (blinker secure coded communications while break- lights) for talk between ships. The other ing into enemy communication links. Thanks seven common ship-to-ship methods were to the work of Laurance Safford, among loudhailer (voice), semaphore flags, flag - many others, the Navy’s OP-20-G, operating hoist, colored lights at night, steam whistles, out of Nebraska Avenue (Washington DC) and both Morse code and voice radio. Air-to- and other facilities, was at the forefront of ship signals remained a problem. During World War II breaking and reading of Japan- much of the war, Navy warships had to hold ese codes, including the Magic operation invaluable information until daylight, as shared with the Army. Code breaking enemy submarines could pick up night sig- proved of central importance in landmark nals by light or radio. Demand for Navy sig- victories from the mid-1942 Battle of Mid- nalmen rose sharply. way to the end of the war. The North African invasion (Operation TORCH, November 1942) demonstrated the Postwar communication challenge when the different Since World War II, the U.S. Navy has faced U.S. Army and Navy signal systems required a greater technologic challenge than any coordination for joint amphibious operations. other armed forces. It now operates on and Much standard radio equipment proved under the ocean, over land masses (includ- unsuitable for amphibious operations, as it ing the Arctic, Antarctic, rivers, lakes, and was not waterproof, demonstrating the need inland seas), as well as in both air and space. for an amphibious command-and-control Merely to survive in these spheres is a con- ship. As the war progressed, what had been tinuing challenge, but to conduct warfare naval vessels’ radar plot (a small darkened and communications at the same time pro- space away from other light sources) vides a supreme challenge. And there are absorbed other functions and became a ter- separate communication needs for the Navy minal for radio, radar, and lookout reports. and the related U.S. Marine Corps. What has Information received would be correlated made today’s operations possible is the and passed to bridge, gunnery, and other growing use of digital communication sys- stations as necessary. Ultimately, the radar tems including dedicated communications plot became a combat information center satellite capacity. established in large spaces below decks The Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) within protected compartments with as was a computerized information processing many as fifty men in each center. Advanced system developed by the Navy in the 1950s, telephone and teleprinter circuits played a approved for implementation in 1956, and large role in keeping widespread naval units first deployed in the mid-1960s in combat in touch with the Navy Department in Wash- ships. The system evolved as computers and ington, as, by 1944, did new and very high related equipment were improved. Consoles frequency radios. On some occasions, the and display units became more capable, as

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did other components. Its successful opera- Magic; Midway, Battle of (3–6 June 1942); tion in combat conditions off Vietnam helped Myer, Albert James (1828–1880); Naval to increase naval reliance on and versatility Radio Stations/Service; Naval Research Laboratory (NRL); Naval Security Group in electronic communication while reducing (NSG); Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS); use of visual signals. NTDS was the first dig- Nebraska Avenue, Washington DC; Night ital system installed on any American naval Signals; North Atlantic Treaty Organization vessel, as well as in a number of foreign (NATO) Communications & Information fleets. Used into the 1990s, NTDS paved the Systems Agency; Ohio, USS; OP-20-G; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Radio Silence; Robison, way for greater integration of digital systems Samuel Shelburne (1867–1952); Safford, throughout American combat vessels. Laurance F. (1890–1973); Semaphore Secure naval communications for a half- (Mechanical Telegraphs); Signal Book; century came under the aegis of the Naval Signal Rockets; Spanish-American War Security Group (NSG), successor to the (1898); Submarine Communications; Talk wartime OP-20-G. Until reorganized under Between Ships (TBS); Truxton, Thomas (1755–1822); Undersea Cables; U.S. Marine another command in 2005, NSG maintained Corps naval coded communications. As technology advances, higher security classifications of Sources most modern naval communication systems Bullard, William H. G. 1915. “The Naval Radio limit publication of historical or descriptive Service: Its Development, Public Service, and material. Naval communication achieve- Commercial Work. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 3 (1): 7–28. ments continue to multiply, however, even if Fiske, Bradley C. 1903. “War Signals.” Proceed- not always evident in general publications. ings of the U. S. Naval Institute XXXIX The Navy and Marine Corps often operate (December): 4. in consort with other forces. In NATO opera- Hooper, Stanford C. 1922. “Keeping the Stars tions, integrated military and naval forces and Stripes in the Ether.” Radio Broadcast June: 127–132. often include several allies speaking different Hooper, Stanford C. 1929. “Naval Communica- languages. Such operations can involve tions: Radio Washington.” Proceedings of the dozens of major warships, landing and sup- Institute of Radio Engineers 17 (September): ply vessels, thousands of troops, troop ships, 1595–1620. landing craft, V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff Howeth, L. S., 1963. The History of Communica- and landing) aircraft, helicopters, and naval tions-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, DC: Government Printing patrol and fighting aircraft of both the Navy Office. and Marine Corps. Each individual unit Luce, Stephen B. 1877. “Signals and Signaling.” needs to communicate with others simultane- Potter’s American Monthly VIII (64): ously in a clear, secure, two-way fashion. 297–302. David L. Woods and Christopher H. Sterling Niblack, Albert P. 1892. “Naval Signaling.” Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute XVIII: 4; See also Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945); 64: 431–505. Combat Information Center (CIC); Fiske, Woods, David L., ed. 1980. Signaling and Bradley A. (1854–1942); Flaghoist; Flags; Communicating at Sea. 2 vols. New York: Arno Flagship; Hooper, Stanford C. (1884–1955); Press.

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V-Mail ets of a dozen sheets. The letter-sheets were designed and gummed to fold into a distinc- V-mail, or Victory mail, was developed dur- tively marked envelope. The user wrote a ing World War II as a valuable method for message in the limited space provided, allowing the U.S. home front and its military added the name and address of the recipient, personnel abroad to keep in touch. Utilizing folded the form and mailed the letter. (In a microfilm mail process that originated in keeping with the practice of free mailing England, V-mail allowed considerable ship- privileges for soldiers in combat zones, the V- ping space that might otherwise be taken mail letters sent from military personnel up with letters to be used instead for needed overseas did not require postage stamps.) war materials. A single mail sack of V-mail Such V-mail letters were then reviewed by letters could replace the thirty-seven mail censors, photographically reduced to thumb- bags required to carry 150,000 regular one- nail size on rolls of microfilm, and sent to a page letters. The weight savings were as dra- processing station overseas located near the matic—from 2,575 pounds of normal mail to addressees. There, individual facsimiles of a mere 45 pounds of V-mail. And V-mail the letter-sheets were reproduced about one- traveled faster, usually being sent by air quarter their original size (about 5 inches by whereas normal letters usually were sent by 4 inches) and the miniature mail was then sea. From 1942 to the end of the war, close to delivered to the recipient. 1.5 billion messages were sent to and from all All this took a while to develop. The first theaters of war using this system. large Army-operated V-mail station overseas The system of microfilming letters (devel- was opened on 15 April 1943 at Casablanca oped by Kodak Limited) was based on the in North Africa. Between 15 June 1942 and 1 use of special V-mail letter-sheets, a combina- April 1945, just over a half-billion V-mail let- tion of letter and envelope that were made ters were sent from the United States to mil- widely available across the United States and itary post offices and about the same number at military facilities abroad, typically in pack- were received from military personnel

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abroad. Yet in spite of the widely advertised described the broad capabilities of the triode, benefits of V-mail (it was touted as patriotic which was by then beginning to replace and part of the war effort), most people still spark-gap and other modes of wireless trans- sent regular first class letters. In 1944, for mission. AT&T bought rights to the de Forest instance, Navy personnel alone received 38 Audion and used them as amplifiers to open million pieces of V-mail—but more than 272 up the first coast-to-coast telephone circuit in million first class letters. 1915. De Forest’s company and Western Elec- Christopher H. Sterling tric were the primary American tube pro- See also Postal Services ducers prior to 1917. World War I vastly increased demand for Sources production of vacuum tubes for military and Snyder, E. D. 1944. “V-Mail.” Radio News U.S. naval radio receiving and transmitting equip- Army Signal Corps Issue (February): ment. General Electric, Westinghouse, and 126–127, 428, 430, 432. other firms entered the market to meet new Wildenberg, Thomas. 2005. “You’ve Got V- Mail.” Naval History Magazine 19 (July): 3. Signal Corps and U.S. Navy orders. The ini- tial Signal Corps order in 1917 was for 80,000 tubes to be delivered at a rate of 500 a week Vacuum Tube at first, rising to 6,000 tubes a week in six months. Further orders for thousands of Invented in 1904, improved in 1906, and standard-design tubes came in 1918 from both fully understood by about 1912, the vacuum the Navy and Signal Corps. In all, well more tube (or “valve” in British usage) became than a half-million tubes were made during central to wireless communication from the war and immediate postwar years. about 1920 until superseded by the transistor By the early 1920s, triode-powered trans- in the 1960s. For a half-century fragile vac- mitters and receivers were standard equip- uum tubes formed the core of most military ment in civil and military applications. The electronic equipment. large naval radio station, NAA, near Wash- While Thomas Edison had been develop- ington, was based on vacuum tube technol- ing the incandescent lightbulb in the late ogy. By 1922 improved means of tube 1870s, he had noticed that a metal plate manufacture and cooling led to vastly more inserted in the lightbulb could indicate the powerful tubes. But vacuum tubes, like the presence of an electric current—what be- lightbulbs they resembled, were fragile, came known as the “Edison Effect.” Building threw off heat, and needed constant replace- on that finding was the late 1904 invention of ment. Radio equipment had to “warm up” the first vacuum tube (or thermionic valve) (its tubes) before being used. Development in England by John Ambrose Fleming (1849– of four-element vacuum tubes in 1929 was 1944), who was a scientific adviser to the the last fundamental improvement in basic Marconi Company. It was intended as a tube technology. By the late 1930s consider- radio detector or receiver. Two years later, able progress had been made in miniatur - American Lee de Forest (1873–1961) added a izing vacuum tubes to develop smaller third element (a tiny screen or grid) between electrical devices. Fleming’s two-element diode to create a tri- In World War II, improved vacuum tubes ode, or what he called an Audion tube. In powered aviation radios, early radar equip- 1912, Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954) ment, and the first computers in both Britain

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and the United States. Tubes were far more infantry officer in 1891, and though given robust (some were made of metal rather than leave to complete medical school, evidently glass) and were getting smaller to enable never served as an army surgeon. He grad- lighter, mobile equipment. Vacuum tubes uated from the Army’s Infantry and Cavalry powered the Semi-Automatic Ground Envi- School at Fort Leavenworth in 1895 and the ronment system for the Air Force in the 1950s first Army War College class in 1905. With and are still used in some transmitters and the map section of the Army’s Military Infor- other specialized functions. Manufactured mation Division, he served in Cuba and into the 1960s, vacuum tubes were generally Puerto Rico in 1898. After assignments in and gradually displaced by transistors and the Philippines and China, in 1915 Major then solid state electronics. Van Deman urged his superiors to form a Christopher H. Sterling general staff section focused on intelligence. See also Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890– The next year the Army assigned intelligence 1954) ; de Forest, Lee (1873–1961); Edison, officers to its six continental and overseas Thomas A. (1847–1931); Naval Radio departments. With America’s entry into Stations/Service; Radio; Semi-Automatic World War I in 1917, Secretary of War New- Ground Environment (SAGE); Solid State ton D. Baker established the Military Intelli- Electronics; Transistor gence Section (MIS) at the War College under Sources Van Deman’s direction. Fleming, J. A. 1919. The Thermionic Valve and Its MIS took charge of the supervision and Developments in Radiotelegraphy and Telephony. control of military espionage and counteres- London: The Wireless Press. pionage for the duration. Much was bor- Institution of Electrical Engineers. 1955. rowed from British and French intelligence; Thermionic Valves: 1904–1954: The First Fifty staff organization took time, and only one Years. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. officer was handling foreign intelligence col- Stokes, John W. 1982. 70 Years of Radio Tubes and lection by the end of 1917. As American Valves. Vestal, NY: Vestal Press. Expeditionary Force (AEF) intelligence was Tyne, Gerald F. 1977. Saga of the Vacuum Tube. very active, Van Deman turned to counterin- Indianapolis, IN: Howard W. Sams. telligence, particularly against the possibility of internal subversion in the United States. Confronted by a shortage of suitable officers Van Deman, Ralph Henry for his expanding operations, Van Deman (1865–1952) utilized civilian detectives, volunteers, and a corps of (enlisted) intelligence police. Ralph Van Deman was the father of Ameri- Van Deman created eight numbered sub- can military intelligence and played a central sections, designated MI-1 through MI-8. The role in establishing effective World War I Cipher Bureau (MI-8) under Van Deman’s code breaking, laying the groundwork for direction, saw cryptology become an adjunct expanding intelligence operations. of military intelligence. Herbert O. Yardley, a Born in Delaware, Ohio, on 3 September civilian code clerk for the State Department, 1865, Van Deman earned a bachelor of arts was placed in charge. Because the War degree at Harvard University (1888) and a Department’s telegraph code of 1915 was medical degree at a medical school in Cincin- designed to promote economy over security, nati (1893). He entered the Army as an MI-8 hastily devised a new code, which was

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compromised almost as soon as it was Sources issued. Though no replacement could be Bigelow, Michael E. 1990. “Van Deman.” developed until after the 1918 armistice, Military Intelligence 16 (5): 38–40. Campbell, Kenneth J. 1987. “Major General Yardley’s team proved most effective at Ralph H. Van Deman: Father of Modern breaking foreign codes. Seeking qualified American Military Intelligence.” American personnel, Van Deman accepted assistance Intelligence Journal 8 (Summer): 13–19. from Colonel George Fabyan, director of Powe, Marc B. 1975. “American Military Intelli- Riverbank Laboratories in Illinois, which gence Comes of Age: A Sketch of a Man and His Times.” Military Review 55 (12): 17–30. trained three classes of Army cryptographers U.S. Army, Military Intelligence Division. 1918. in 1917–1918. MI-8 later developed its own Work and Activities of the Military Intelligence training course. Division, General Staff. Washington, DC: War Utilizing Signal Corps personnel, Van Department. Deman also established a radio intelligence Van Deman, Ralph. 1988. The Final Memorandum capability with stations along the Maine coast of Major General Ralph H. Van Deman, USA, Ret., 1865–1952: Father of US Military Intelli- and the Mexican border to monitor German gence, edited by Ralph E. Weber. Wilmington, intelligence and diplomatic transmissions. DE: Scholarly Resources. Because certain of his counter intelligence activities had impinged on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, however, now Colonel Vehicles and Transport Van Deman was relieved of his duties in June 1918 and sent to France to assess AEF’s intel- Using land vehicles to carry or transmit mil- ligence activities. Two months later, his for- itary communication dates back at least to mer agency became the War Department’s Roman times when military roads were Military Intelligence Division. maintained for use by, among others, mili- Van Deman served as the Army’s chief tary couriers, some of whom traveled by intelligence and counterintelligence officer at chariot or coach. For centuries vehicular the Versailles peace conference. He turned to speeds did not exceed the horse. Only in the other duties in 1920, was promoted to mid-nineteenth century did that change with brigadier general in 1927, and to major gen- early railways. Thanks to wireless, since eral several months before retiring in Sep- about 1920 more vehicles have served less to tember 1929. He resumed his intelligence carry messages than to receive them as com- activities in retirement, establishing his own manders coordinate motorized transport personal intelligence network and maintain- and fighting units. ing files on people deemed “subversives.” Railways were the first modern vehicles He advised the War Department from 1941 subject to wartime communications. By the to 1946. Van Deman died in San Diego on 22 mid-nineteenth century in Europe and dur- January 1952. ing the American Civil War (1861–1865), Keir B. Sterling effective railway networks moved not only troops and equipment but, albeit more See also Friedman, William F. (1891–1969); Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald (1881–1971); rarely, the couriers and dispatches that tied Signals Intelligence (SIGINT); Yardley, armies together—especially where faster Herbert O. (1889–1958) telegraph links were unavailable. That the Union had a far more extensive and effective

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railway network was one factor in its even- Overland, and Bantam. Final production by tual victory. Railroads quickly became essen- the end of 1945 totaled nearly 615,000 vehicles, tial in carrying heavy cargoes of wire and most built by Ford and Willys. They remained other telegraph and signaling equipment. in service around the world for decades. By the twentieth-century world wars, rail- Specialized radio facilities built into light roads were primary land carriers of men and trucks were vital to fast-moving Axis and equipment, their routes and schedules often Allied armies, especially in the African and coordinated by use of radio. then European theaters of World War II. At the other end of the weight scale, the With transmitters and receivers built and bicycle, developed in modern form in the tested to stand rugged treatment over diffi- late nineteenth century, appears to have seen cult terrain, wide temperature and humidity its first military application during the Boer variation, and constant use, these vehicles War (1899–1902), ridden by messengers over were essential to keeping active comman- short distances. Light and simple to use, the ders in touch with fast-changing battle bicycle is often faster and more agile in fronts. Multiple spare parts (especially frag- urban traffic than are motor vehicles. ile vacuum tubes) were supplied, water- Though the bicycle had limited military sig- proofing was standard, and antennas were nal value, its history in warfare is long— mounted on springs. In addition to trans- bikes were widely used by Viet Cong mitting messages, tons of radio, telephone, messengers during the Vietnam War in the and telegraph equipment and wire were late 1960s and were common in the Swiss transported by trucks from logistic centers to army into the 1990s. front lines. The motorcycle became a very useful Robust communication links were vital to means of delivering military messages the decisive use of armored forces during before and during World War I—until World War II. Fleets of tanks and personnel wireless largely subsumed the job. Harley- carriers were coordinated by central com- Davidson motorcycles, for example, were mand thanks to growing use of radio com- used by the U.S. Army during the Mexican munication. U.S. Army vehicles made early Punitive Expedition of 1916. More than use of FM multichannel radio for static-free 90,000 Harley motorcycles were produced high-frequency communications, despite during World War II, many of them used for many sources of interference within the vehi- signal dispatch. Lighter motor scooters were cle itself. Throat and then lip microphones also used farther behind the front. were developed to improve communication As motor vehicles became more robust, the in high-noise situations. Virtually all small truck came into widespread military armored vehicles, Allied or Axis, contained use. During World War II, the jeep often at least one form of radio to meld them into served to get word (and, more often, people an effective mobile force. and equipment) through as needed. Willys- Miniaturization and digitization vastly Overland was one of two firms that re- improved mobile radio equipment starting sponded to an Army quartermaster request in the 1960s. By the late 1970s cellular mobile for small (quarter-ton four-wheel drive) utility communications added further flexibility to vehicle designs in 1940. In November, the the coordinated command of military vehi- first 1,500 were ordered from Ford, Willys- cles of all types. Current combat net radios

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provide voice and data connectivity and form December 2006.] http://www.olive-drab the basic layer for tactical command and con- .com/od_milveh_guide.php3. trol from division to battalion and company Zaloga, Steven, and Hugh Johnson. 2005. Jeeps 1941–45. London: Vanguard. level. Modern systems offer sophisticated communications security (encryp tion) and frequency hopping for efficient spectrum uti- Vietnam War (1959–1975) lization and electronic counter-countermea- sures. Military satellites allow ready The long Vietnam War (ca. 1959–1975) was communication with mobile units in multi- strongly impacted by applications of chang- ple locations. ing communications technology. Today, emergency mobile command vehi- cles provide a civilian application of military Background communication units. Large vans or trucks The international military conflict in Vietnam contain a variety of communication links, during the 1960s and early 1970s had its roots terrestrial and satellite, for use in local and in the post–World War II decision by France regional emergency situations. Medical vehi- to reassert its colonial authority over Indo- cles (including ambulances) also apply com- china, which comprised all of Laos, Cambo- munication lessons often first learned on the dia, and Vietnam. The French return was battlefield. contested by a Communist-led nationalist Christopher H. Sterling movement known as the Viet Minh, which was directed by the experienced revolution- See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; ary leader Ho Chi Minh. Hostilities erupted in Flagship; Golden Arrow Sections; Intelli- December 1946, spreading through Vietnam. gence Ships; Mexican Punitive Expedition (1916–1917); Military Roads; Mobile The war dragged on for seven years, culmi- Communications; TELCOM Mobile Wireless nating in the disastrous defeat of French Units; Vacuum Tube forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The French withdrew, and Vietnam was partitioned into Sources Bishop, Denis, and Chris Ellis. 1979. Vehicles at sectors north and south of the 17th Parallel. War. Cranbury, NJ: A. S. Barnes. In the South, American military and eco- Conner, W. D. 1917. Military Railroads. Army nomic aid subsidized the pro-Western gov- Corps of Engineers, Professional Papers No. ernment of President Ngo Dinh Diem, while 32. Washington, DC: Government Printing Ho Chi Minh consolidated Communist Office. power in North Vietnam. The Communists Defense Update. 2005. “Mobile Cellular Networks in Military Use.” [Online article; had decided to reunify Vietnam by force, retrieved December 2006.] http://www and guerrilla attacks, led by southern insur- .defense-update.com/features/. gents and bolstered by arms from North Fitzpatrick, Jim. 1998. The Bicycle in Wartime: An Vietnam, grew in intensity after 1959. Illustrated History. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy decided O’Connell, J. D. 1942. “Development of Vehicu- lar Equipment.” Radio News Special Signal to increase American aid to South Vietnam Corps Issue (November): 106–109, 198–202. and to deploy thousands of military advisers Olive-Drab.com. “Military Vehicle Ownership to assist the South’s Army of the Republic of Guide.” [Online information; retrieved Vietnam (ARVN). The Communist insur-

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gency continued to expand, as men and nications were paper documents and couri- materiel from the North entered South Viet- ers; open radio broadcasts that carried VWP nam via the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” a complex policy statements; and Chinese- or Soviet- of footpaths, bike routes, and—eventually— supplied radio transceivers, which usually improved roads that crisscrossed through transmitted enciphered messages produced the borderlands of Cambodia and Laos. Pres- by relatively simple encoding systems. In ident Lyndon Johnson committed U.S. com- 1959 special NVA units, reinforced by PASF bat forces to defend South Vietnam in 1965. political police, began developing networks American military manpower in Vietnam of communications-logistics posts inside reached more than 540,000 troops in 1969, Laos’ border with South Vietnam. These before President Richard Nixon ordered the posts provided secure rest stops, storage phased withdrawal of U.S. forces. In 1973 the depots, and meeting places for military units United States concluded the Paris Peace and political cadres. Eventually these net- Accords with North Vietnam and withdrew works grew into the Ho Chi Minh Trail com- all its remaining troops from plex and provided crucial overland transit for the South. Two years later the North Viet- couriers and operatives carrying military nam Army (NVA) launched a major offen- information to and from North Vietnam. sive against the South, and by the end of America’s direct entry into the war in 1965 April 1975 the South Vietnamese govern- and NVA’s big-unit intervention in South ment had collapsed. Vietnam was formally Vietnam prompted a reorganization of NVA reunified as the Socialist Republic of Viet- communications personnel and protocols. nam, with its Communist government based Reliance on radio communications with field at Hanoi. troops increased, and all NVA division head- quarters soon included a signals battalion. Communist Communications Each NVA regiment had a signals company, The Vietnamese Communists’ military and specialized communications platoons efforts during both the Franco-Viet Minh were also developed for each NVA battalion War (1946–1954) and the later American war in the field. NVA regional command staffs (1959–1975) were planned, organized, and included specially trained cryptographers. conducted by four major entities: the so- Nonetheless, U.S. intelligence estimates called Viet Cong (VC), or southern guerrilla showed that signals personnel comprised apparatus; the NVA; the Vietnam Lao Dong, less than 5 percent of total NVA unit or Vietnam Workers’ Party (VWP), usually strength, compared with up to 20 percent in referred to as the Communist Party; and the American ground forces. The scarcity of People’s Armed Security Forces (PASF), the field-capable radio equipment limited the northern-based internal security police, sim- Communists’ radio communications, and ilar to the Soviet Union’s KGB, which was both NVA and VC forces used a grab-bag of responsible for ensuring the political obedi- Chinese, Soviet, and Eastern European as ence of NVA units and commanders. well as captured American and Japanese Each of these organizations maintained radio equipment throughout the war. discrete communications systems. For each, NVA radiomen used Morse code and, at the primary tools for long-distance commu- higher operational levels, encrypted voice

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transmissions. Security protocols also munications and tried to decipher encoded included use of prearranged transmission U.S. radio transmissions. These assets pro- times, frequency changes, concise messag- vided real-time data on U.S. air operations to ing, and one-way communications. Trans- North Vietnam’s air defense units. After 1973 mission locations were removed from staff the Soviet Union and China began providing headquarters and were changed frequently more sophisticated multichannel trans- to thwart enemy direction finders. NVA ceivers to NVA field units. After American security policies required that during large bombing ended in early 1973, telephone operations, minimal use was made of radios. wires were placed along main arteries of the Troops relied instead on couriers, flares, Ho Chi Minh Trail, facilitating NVA voice flashlights, whistles, and the like. communications with Hanoi. The Communists’ signals interception and intelligence units were highly successful in American and Allied penetrating ARVN and U.S. military com- Communications munications throughout the Vietnam War. The Army Signal Corps units first provided Using imitative deception techniques, such communications facilities in Vietnam begin- units could participate in ARVN/U.S. radio ning with American military support for nets, posing as “friendlies.” When unde- French forces in 1950–1951. U.S. civilian tected, they transmitted false information, agencies began in 1955 to provide radio called for artillery or air strikes on ARVN/ equipment and technical assistance to the U.S. or civilian positions, requested halts to South Vietnamese government’s police and damaging enemy fire, lured ARVN/U.S. internal security agencies. When President units into ambushes, and even called for Kennedy increased the American military American “dustoff” helicopters to evacuate advisory effort, however, the need for VC/NVA wounded to U.S. medical facilities. expanded U.S. military communications sys- The fact that both ARVN and U.S. forces rou- tems in South Vietnam emerged. Initially tinely used open voice transmissions and U.S. advisers relied on ARVN radios and on predictable frequencies eased the work of their own high-frequency transmitters. In intelligence collection. 1962 planning began for a larger system As early as 1963, the VC began developing capable of further expansion. special technical reconnaissance (TR) cells The system that emerged, code-named that used captured radios to monitor ARVN BACK PORCH, was built by the U.S. Air radio traffic. By 1966 it was estimated that all Force and operated by a U.S. Army Signal VC units at the provincial district level had Corps battalion. It used long-distance tro- active TR operatives. As the war went on, pospheric scatter radio to link military camps these units, with their NVA counterparts, as much as 200 miles apart. Key stations with exploited parallel message traffic carried on billboard antennas were located at Phu Lam distinct ARVN and U.S. radio networks to (near Saigon), Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Da break Allied codes. In addition, sophisticated Nang, Pleiku, and in Ubon, Thailand. At the equipment aboard Soviet and Chinese naval same time, a parallel microwave-based sys- vessels allowed these ships to function as tem, designed for civilian agencies’ use in floating signals interception platforms. They non-VC areas of the Mekong Delta and monitored American naval and aircraft com- known as SOUTHERN TOLL, was financed

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by the U.S. Agency for International Devel- example, specially equipped Caribou twin- opment. As the insurgency spread in the engine aircraft were on station above the delta, however, SOUTHERN TOLL increas- battlefields twenty-four hours a day for ingly carried military and intelligence infor- twenty-eight consecutive days. The commu- mation. Meanwhile, new stations were nications link thus permitted Army airmo- added to the BACK PORCH system in 1964, bile forces to call in both medical evacuation and by 1965 this system was linked to a new units and close air support. Southeast Asia regional communications sys- The complexity of South Vietnam’s terrain tem based on undersea cables and built by and the varying types of warfare in which the U.S. Air Force, known as WETWASH. U.S. forces were involved—from the Army Improvements to communications links with Special Forces’ small-unit counter-insur- staff commands in Hawaii and the U.S. main- gency and reconnaissance teams to the inten- land included capacity upgrades for the sive bombing missions of the U.S. Air Force experimental satellite ground terminal and naval aircraft over North Vietnam— installed at Phu Lam in 1964. Priority access made coordination of battlefield communi- over all systems was assigned to command- cations essential to the U.S. military effort. and-control and intelligence users, while During the enemy Tet Offensive of early logistics, personnel, and other less urgent 1968, when VC forces launched simultane- matters were carried on slower radio-teletype ous attacks throughout South Vietnam, com- links until the introduction of first- munications facilities were particularly hard generation digital communications (the hit. At Hue, protracted fighting by Automatic Digital Network) in 1968. outnumbered U.S. Marines prevented the Introduction of American ground forces principal U.S. station from falling into into South Vietnam in 1965 precipitated spe- enemy hands, but communications interrup- cial tactical communications problems. The tions did occur at many other locations. In most critical of these centered on the Army’s the “mini-Tet” of May 1968, a VC attack on new airmobile tactics, in which ground an infantry division’s mountaintop signal troops were ferried by helicopter to remote station at Nui Ba Den, near Tay Ninh, suc- locations to make contact with enemy forces, cessfully penetrated the site’s defensive peri - often traveling great distances from U.S. base meter and damaged much of the equipment. camps. Mobile multichannel, voice-capable By the summer of 1968 enemy attacks on radios were already the backbone of Ameri- U.S. signals installations were averaging can ground forces’ communications equip- eighty per month. ment, but these man-packed transceivers Since VC and NVA ground forces usually were of limited use in the complex terrain, operated without radio traffic, American and particularly in the Central Highlands and ARVN radio direction-finding and monitor- the interior provinces of South Vietnam. ing equipment were of limited use. How- Army aviators were deployed to circle over ever, in air operations over North Vietnam, U.S. ground units engaged in field opera- Vietnamese Communist pilots—flying tions, providing airborne message relay plat- Soviet-built aircraft—followed Soviet com- forms between ground troops and rear area munications protocols that relied on contin- commanders. During the Ia Drang Valley uous radio interface with ground controllers. battles of October–November 1965, for Most of these transmissions were monitored

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by U.S. military agencies and by the U.S. ment was either transferred to ARVN or National Security Agency. shipped to South Korea for American forces Meanwhile, new communications tech- stationed there. nologies were being adapted to attack VC/ After the Paris Peace Accords of January NVA logistical operations. The Department of 1973, which mandated the complete with- Defense developed battlefield seismic, acous - drawal of American military forces from tic, and radio sensors that could detect the Vietnam, U.S. and third-country civilian con- movement of vehicles, men, and supplies. tractors continued providing assistance to Disguised as vegetation and air dropped ARVN and South Vietnam government throughout target areas, including in Laos agencies. By September 1974 all but a hand- and Cambodia, the sensors transmitted data ful of these contractors had withdrawn. to specially adapted monitoring aircraft, Shortages of skilled technicians and spare while Air Force bases in Thailand processed parts rendered some 40 percent of the Amer- the data and planned and conducted inter- ican-supplied communications equipment diction air strikes. held by ARVN divisions inoperable. As a The May 1970 American incursion into result, increasing quantities of ARVN’s clas- Cambodia presented different challenges. sified material was carried by courier. With little advance notice of the operation, Likewise, fuel shortages and maintenance American ground units initially relied solely lapses disabled most of ARVN’s direction- on FM radio nets and inefficient mobile finding aircraft, just as Communist forces in antennas. Ground operations were stalled the field were beginning to rely more heavily by inadequate interface of communications on radio communications. During the final equipment, while logistics commands used spring offensive by Communist forces in telephone and teletype links to their respec- March 1975, however, NVA troops again tive headquarters. observed radio silence protocols. When ARVN defenses deteriorated more rapidly Winding Down than expected, NVA commanders found that Although overall American troop deploy- their subordinates—following pre-set orders ments in Vietnam dropped from 544,000 in and observing radio silence—failed to take July 1969 to less than a tenth of that by July the fullest tactical advantage. Nonetheless the 1972, most stationary military communica- Communist commander, NVA General Van tions assets remained in place, ready to meet Tien Dung, used the Communists’ own tele- any military emergency. In March 1970, the phone links to Hanoi for last-minute consul- U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a plan tations. Dung’s forces seized control of Saigon for the phased transition of fixed-site com- on 30 April 1975, bringing the war to a close. munications facilities to ARVN, but military Laura M. Calkins exigencies forced multiple changes to the See also Airmobile Communications; Automatic plan over succeeding years. American advis- Digital Network (AUTODIN), Couriers; ers, meanwhile, provided training for ARVN Microwave; Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS), Mobile Communications; and South Vietnamese government techni- Phu Lam, Vietnam (1961–1972); Radio; Radio cians. Elsewhere, as American signals units Silence; Teleprinter/Teletype; Tropospheric left Vietnam, much of their portable equip- Scatter

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Sources but is also enhancing the current Defense Bergen, John D. 1986. Military Communications: Information System Network to emphasize A Test for Technology—The US Army in increased bandwidth. The Defense Informa- Vietnam. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, U.S. Army Center of Military tion Systems Agency (DISA) sees VoIP as History. converging its presently separate voice, Conboy, Kenneth, and Dale Andrade. 2000. video, and data networks and began VoIP Spies & Commandos: How America Lost the operations in Falls Church, Virginia, in 2001. Secret War in North Vietnam. Lawrence: DISA initiated pilot networks for the Central University Press of Kansas. and Special Operations commands, and McCoy, James W. 1992. Secrets of the Viet Cong. New York: Hippocrene Books. DISA operations in Iraq utilized a secure Military History Institute of Vietnam. 2002. pilot VoIP system. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the At the same time, the individual military People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, services have conducted pilot projects and translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. Lawrence: initial deployments of VoIP technology. The University Press of Kansas. Rienzi, Thomas M. 1972. Communications- U.S. Marine Corps has been especially active Electronics, 1962–1970. Washington, DC: in field implementation of VoIP, using easily Government Printing Office, U.S. Depart- transportable command-and-control combat ment of the Army. operations centers. These are modular, field- Verrone, Richard Burks, and Laura M. Calkins. deployable systems normally installed in 2005. Voices from Vietnam: Eyewitness Accounts tents and using computer stations with of the War, 1954–75. London: David & Charles. touch screen displays. VoIP can provide current battlefield information while soldiers are on the way to their destination, eliminat- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) ing the former information blackout between mission departure and arrival. The system Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technol- switches to a command-and-control role ogy provides enhanced communication over once troops are in battle. The benefits the Internet. VoIP equipment looks like other of converged voice and data are especially telephones, but some advanced models have evident in medical evacuation operations color video displays, emphasizing the con- where a medical helicopter evacuation verged communications capabilities of such can be launched in about half the time as pre- systems. viously. The Department of Defense (DoD) began Although battle-area deployment of VoIP experimenting with VoIP capabilities in the technology has received considerable atten- late 1990s, seeking to push the benefits of tion from military services and technology such integrated communications down to developers, permanent force installations are small unit and individual soldier levels. Ser- also being readied for eventual VoIP conver- vice application began in 2003 in Iraq and sion. Within the Air Force, for example, world- Afghanistan, but full application will extend wide locations must eventually transition into the 2010s. DoD has adopted the Internet to high-speed, fiber optics–based networks. Protocol (IP) as the networking technology The Air Force Combat Information Transport for its developing Global Information Grid, System program installs and operates voice

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and data networks at more than a hundred http://www.military-information Air Force, Air Reserve, and regional Air -technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=914. National Guard sites. It was initiated in 1998 to develop improved information transport, network battle management, and network Voice Relay defense. Two-thirds of those sites had been converted to fiber optic capability by the Voice relay has one historical meaning, and mid-2000s, setting the stage for VoIP imple- another quite different and technically en- mentation, which will involve considerable hanced meaning in recent years. Often equipment upgrades. Lackland Air Force overlooked in any survey of military com- Base in Texas and Scott Air Force Base in munications is the simple and ready expedi- Illinois were among the first to pilot VoIP ent of using the human voice. Probably the operations. Two-thirds of the U.S. Navy’s oldest such means of signaling, speaking— voice communications was VoIP-enabled by or shouting—at a distance is perhaps the the mid-2000s. single means of message relay that stretches Elsewhere, in mid-2005, British Telecom across human history from the earliest times and Nortel announced a plan to provide to the present. The term “voice relay” can managed IP services to the British Ministry mean this ancient and traditional mode of of Defence, which could result in improved signaling or much more recent digital devel- security around emerging VoIP technology. opments. This is part of the Defence Fixed Telecommu- Use of the human voice has always nications Service to build and manage a been limited in two important ways. Shout- coordinated communications infrastructure ing can carry only so far, depending some- for some 2,000 locations serving the army, what on conditions (a shout in a cave will Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force. carry farther than in hilly open country, for Use of military VoIP raises substantial con- example) and on the strength of the individ- cerns as the technology still suffers funda- ual voice. A voice will carry farther in the mental security shortcomings. VoIP services winter when leaves are off the trees (and pose a threat because they require some fire- thus cannot soak up noise). Thus voice relay wall ports to remain open, which can give is not much use for true distance communi- hackers opportunities to penetrate a net- cation—unless a system is established to work. Thus military VoIP applications can be have a series of people shout from point to exposed to security breaches if not imple- point, thus allowing greater distance to be mented carefully and correctly. covered than any single voice could. Pre- Christopher H. Sterling suming optimal conditions, such a relay can in theory cover a good deal of ground in See also Combat Information Transport System (CITS); Defence Fixed Telecommunications very little time. The other drawback, of System (DFTS); Defense Information Systems course, is that use of the voice automatically Agency (DISA); Global Information Grid shows an enemy where the shouting person (GIG); Internet is. They can hear and quickly locate the Source source of a voice. Miller, William L. 2005. “Voice over the Future.” Traditional voice relay is generally com- [Online article; retrieved March 2006.] munication “in the clear,” that is, not encoded. As typically employed in battlefield

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conditions, shouting provides warnings or tems. The Automatic Voice Relay System is a information, but usually in plain language. type of VoIP useful for mobile-to-mobile Presuming an eavesdropper understands the communications in amateur (ham) and mil- language, he also understands the military itary applications alike. message sent. But anyone can listen and Christopher H. Sterling learn—secrecy is nearly impossible. While See also Ancient Signals; Human Signaling; voice relays can be coded (say, using num- Internet; Mobile Communications; Voice bers for specific meanings), such a system over Internet Protocol (VoIP) must be worked out in advance and may be difficult to understand clearly at the limit of Sources voice range. Biran, Gil. “Voice over Frame Relay, IP and ATM: The Case for Cooperative Network- In recent years, the term “voice relay” has ing.” [Online article; retrieved September also come to indicate application of digital 2005.] http://www.protocols.com/papers/ technologies to relaying voice signals. Voice voe.htm. relay is one form of captioning, which con- Bruninga, Bob. 2000. “Automatic Voice verts spoken language or dialogue to visible Relay System.” [Online article; retrieved Septem ber 2005.] http://web.usna.navy.mil/ print on a video screen (also called closed ~bruninga/avrs/avrs2000.htm. captioning). It can provide functional equiv- Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical alency for the hard of hearing, indicate a Communications Techniques. Orlando, FL: method of telephone messaging for those Martin-Marietta. who are deaf or hard of hearing, indicate digital means of transmitting voice signals on the Internet and other transmission sys-

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Walkie-Talkie 130,000 were made by the end of World War II. Physically, the device looked like a long, Walkie-talkie was a term informally applied olive-drab–colored brick (and weighed as to several U.S. Army Signal Corps tactical much or more) with an antenna sticking out two-way radios during World War II. Based of the top. They were used at the platoon or on the analog vacuum tube technology of the company level. time, the portable devices (the first ones Colonel Roger Colton at Fort Monmouth using AM, and later models based on FM made the important decision to shift these technology) were bulky and heavy by mod- tactical devices to frequency modulation (FM) ern standards. because it would allow reliable, static-free While the Signal Corps labs at Fort Mon- single channel radio communication, even mouth, New Jersey, had been experimenting between moving vehicles. FM inventor with transceivers (transmitter-receivers) Edwin Howard Armstrong donated his time since 1936, they had been based on ampli- and patents for military equipment. Initial tude modulation (AM) technology. The first FM military radios were for vehicles, as they Signal Corps’ walkie-talkie units (SCR-193, were too heavy for man-carry portability. The -194, and -195) appeared in 1939. These pack first portable FM two-way radio for the Signal sets transmitted voice signals on frequencies Corps was designed by Daniel E. Noble between 27 and 65 MHz but were heavy and (1901–1980), an engineer working for Galvin. inconvenient to carry. Galvin Manufacturing Weighing 35 to 40 pounds, the radio became (later Motorola) developed the first hand- the SCR-300 backpack unit, used channels held two-way AM radio, the “handie-talkie,” in the 40–48 MHz spectrum, and offered a in 1940. It weighed 2.3 kg and had a range of range of up to 20 miles. Based on battery about one mile. Known as the SCR-536, the power, this was the “real” walkie-talkie, the devices came to be manufactured at a rate of Army’s first handheld portable, two-way fifty a day by early 1942 and more than FM transceiver. The original version used a

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Improving technology after 1945 saw pro- duction of smaller and lighter devices with greater capabilities—the first transistorized pocket transmitter appeared in 1960, and a two-way radio followed two years later. This portable technology began to see limited civilian use even during World War II. After the war, the basic walkie-talkie idea quickly expanded into a family of devices, the for- bears of later citizen’s band radios in the 1970s and the first analog cell phones in the early 1980s. Christopher H. Sterling See also Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890– 1954); Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Mobile Communications; Modulation; Radio

Sources McElroy, Gil. 2005. “A Short History of the Handheld Transceiver.” [Online article; This is the famous World War II “Walkie-Talkie” retrieved September 2006.] http://www2 (SCR-300) portable two-way radio shown in winter .arrl.org/qst/2005/01/0501047.pdf#search= use. With the analog tube-based technology of the time, %22walkie-talkie%20history%22. it looks (and it was) heavy and clumsy by modern Petrakis, Harry Mark. 1965. “The Talkies— standards. (U.S. Army Signal Center Command Handie and Walkie.” In The Founder’s Touch: History Office, Fort Gordon, Georgia) The Life of Paul Galvin of Motorola, 144–147. New York: McGraw Hill. Tasker, Alan D. 2000. “U.S. Military Portable half-duplex channel (only one radio trans- Radios.” With rebuttal by Dennis Starks. mits at a time, though any number can listen) [Online article; retrieved June 2006.] http://hereford.ampr.org/history/ and a push-to-talk switch that began trans- portable.html. mission. The walkie-talkie’s built-in speaker Thompson, George Raynor, et al. 1957. “Ground could be heard by the user but also those in Radio and Radio Link or Relay. Transformed his immediate vicinity (a feature sometimes by FM.” In The Signal Corps: The Test helpful, but often not if enemy forces were (December 1941 to July 1943). U.S. Army in World War II, The Technical Services, 229– nearby). The first walkie-talkie equipment 241. Washington, DC: Government Printing was airlifted to the Mediterranean Theater Office. for use during the early 1944 Allied landings War Department. 1945. Radio Set SCR-300-A, at Anzio, Italy. These devices were used by Technical Manual TM 11–242. Washington, infantry platoons, companies, and battalions DC: Government Printing Office. and variations were soon developed for field Woods, David L. 1965. “Tactical Wireless, Radio, and Radiotelephone.” In A History artillery and tank units. Eventually, Motorola of Tactical Communication Techniques, produced nearly 50,000 of these famed SCR- 209–239. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta 300 walkie-talkie units during the course of (reprinted by Arno Press in Telecom- the war. munications, 1974).

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War Department Radio Net Army radio stations, which linked all conti- nental corps area headquarters and overseas By the end of World War I, the U.S. Army uti- Army departments, such as Hawaii and the lized a variety of radios, both mobile and Philippines. By December 1922, the network fixed, yet it lacked a nationwide strategic handled an average of 10,407 messages per radio network, let alone one that linked day. The savings proved to be enormous, Washington DC with America’s overseas ter- especially because the War Department Mes- ritories. In 1920–1922, Colonel Hanson B. sage Center and Radio Net handled mes- Black, working in the Office of the Chief Sig- sages for the State Department and more nal Officer, set out to create just such an inte- than forty other governmental agencies. In grated strategic network. 1928, WXY’s call sign was changed to WVA There were many reasons for establishing and then to WAR (which came to stand for a government-operated strategic communi- “We Are Ready”), demonstrating that, for cations network. It would reduce depen- all its work with nonmilitary agencies, the dence on, and the cost of using, the nation’s Signal Corps had not forgotten its mission to commercial radio and wire services while make the nation ready for war. providing the Army with personnel trained This network enterprise was not without in long-distance communications. In addi- its share of challenges. During the economic tion, an Army-wide network could aid with boom of the 1920s, many experienced oper- any civil disturbances, labor union violence, ators left the Army as soon as they could to or natural disasters such as hurricanes. get better-paying jobs in the private sector. The Signal Corps also wanted to create a Several technical difficulties, such as sum- central message center to handle not only mer static, could only be solved by the acqui- radio messages but also War Department sition of better radios; yet the Army’s budget messages sent by commercial wire. This pro- had been cut extensively during that same posal caused a struggle within the govern- period. Still, the soldiers who manned the ment because the War Department had Net, along with some civilian employees, controlled its own message center, indepen- developed a certain esprit de corps, helped dent of the Army Signal Corps, since the along when a trickle of new and improved American Civil War. The Adjutant General equipment arrived, in particular transmitters Corps also sought to manage the War operating at higher frequencies. In 1928, Department’s message center. The post office WAR proved its worth during a Florida hur- wanted to add the Army’s long-distance ricane when it linked Army radios with a radios to its own Air Mail Radio Net. Never- nongovernmental ham (amateur) station. theless, the Signal Corps beat out its rivals The 1930s Depression initially brought even and established its War Department Radio harsher budget restrictions, but personnel Net in 1922 and the War Department Mes- turnover declined as jobs in the private sec- sage Center in 1923. The corps’ victory fol- tor became scarce. By the late 1930s, the lowed logically from the fact that the Army’s budget began to increase (especially message center would be intimately con- after 1939, when World War II began in nected to the new Radio Net. Europe), which meant that the Radio Net In 1922, the Washington DC network con- could not only erect new stations, such as in trol station, WXY, coordinated eighty-nine Iceland in 1941, but could also begin to

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devote its facilities almost exclusively to mil- was renamed the Army Command and itary traffic. Administrative Communications Agency On 7 December 1941, the War Department (ACACA), still under the Signal Corps. Message Center gained a brief moment of ACACA not only controlled the Message notoriety when, just before the Japanese Center and WAR but also provided admin- attacked Pearl Harbor, the Army sent out a istrative, training, and logistical support to a last-minute warning to its commanders in multitude of Signal Corps agencies, such as the Philippines, Panama, and Hawaii. The the White House Communications Agency Message Center discovered that static had and the Military District of Washington. It blocked its circuits to the West Coast—but also coordinated the ham operators who instead of turning to the Navy, which had a comprised the Military Amateur Radio Sys- more powerful transmitter in Washington, tem (MARS); later, “Amateur” was replaced the Message Center sent the warning by by “Affiliate.” Western Union wire; it reached Hawaii The Korean War meant more work for Army headquarters only after the attack had ACACA and ACAN—traffic originating in ended. The Radio Net suffered considerable the Pentagon doubled from mid-1950 to criticism for using Western Union, but it is early 1951—but even after the end of that difficult to see whether any other course conflict they had many Cold War chores, would have seriously affected the attack’s despite a shrinking budget. As one example, outcome. ACACA continued giving logistical support World War II brought a sudden and enor- to other Signal Corps activities in the Wash- mous increase in workload. The network was ington DC area, while ACAN communicated renamed the Army Command and Adminis- with troops still in Germany, Korea, and else- trative Network (ACAN) and had new sta- where. tions to control in Great Britain, Australia, During 1957–1958, ACACA was renamed and elsewhere around the world. The Mes- the Army Communications Agency; by this sage Center, now called the War Department time, it had turned its attention to communi- Signal Center, had its demand for more per- cations support for the government’s evacu- sonnel met in part by Women’s Army Corps ation and relocation facilities in case of (WAC) soldiers, many of whom worked in nuclear attack. The Signal Corps emphasized the code section. By 1944, the Signal Center communications automation and signal had 511 enlisted men and 273 WACs, but security in response to this new task. even that was not enough. Technical im - In 1962 the Signal Corps and other Army prove ments, such as semi-automatic tape technical branches lost their traditional struc- relay and mechanical enciphering, helped ture and autonomy in a major reorganization with the workload. On one day, 9 August within the Department of the Army. Thus the 1945, ACAN processed more than 50 million Radio Net passed out of the control of the words, mostly by radioteletype outside Signal Corps, itself no longer an operational the continental United States and wire facil- entity. ities within. Karl G. Larew At the end of World War II, ACAN and the See also Army Signal Corps; Military Affiliate Signal Center were reduced in size with Radio System (MARS); Radio; White House demobilization. In 1947 the Signal Center Communications Agency (WHCA)

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Sources bureaucracy and the flow of information French, E. F. 1925. “War Department Radio necessary to make strategic decisions. This Net.” Signal Corps Bulletin 30: 13–16. model is both hierarchical and vertical. Deci- Larew, Karl G. 1956. “ACACA History: A History of the Army Command and sions are made at high levels and filter to Administrative Communications Agency, those in the field. In any of the services, 1899–1956.” Washington, DC: Unpublished strategic planners communicate with opera- ms. written for ACACA, now located in the tional commanders. Military communication archives of the Military History Institute, is seen as a systematic process involving Carlisle Barracks, PA, and of the Command many levels—from foot soldier to general. Historian, Signal Corps, Fort Gordon, GA. Office of the Chief of Military History. 1956– Even with digital information links, such a 1966. United States Army in World War II: The process can take valuable time. Technical Services: The Signal Corps. 3 vols. The attacks on New York and Washington Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of brought a new set of challenges to the deci- Military History. sion-making process in the military. These arose from expanding abilities of potential adversaries to communicate effectively and War on Terrorism quickly. Terrorists approach warfare from an asymmetrical perspective. Both wars against The early twenty-first century brought a new Iraq along with that in Afghanistan have illus- American focus on battling terrorists—many trated that virtually no adversary is able to of them (but not all) Islamic fundamental- match the United States in conventional mil- ists—who, with the al-Qaeda 11 September itary capabilities. As a result, terrorists with 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, knowledge of the OODA loop seek to take brought a new kind of war directly to the advantage of the slower bureaucracy of the United States. Regional wars in the Middle U.S. military to exploit a temporary advan- East and elsewhere contributed to a growing tage. For example, the acquisition and use of sense of “us” versus “them” in cultural as modern communications allowed many of well as military terms. “Terrorist” was taken the pro-Taliban groups in Afghanistan the to mean those, organized or not, who aimed opportunity to change sides once the order of much of their behavior at civilian targets, the battle was established in the early days of hoping to cause chaos and thus modify American operations there. national policies. Modes of communication Further, few terrorists engage in formal are central on both sides of this emerging decision making and can thus move quickly. equation. Terrorist organizations are more flexible, Communication in any battle is a matter of being based on dispersed units, which are transmitting appropriate information into less reliant on communications during pre- the right hands at the correct time. The U.S. planned attacks. The network terrorist group military relies on a process of communica- rarely has a central leadership to attack. The tion and assessment often referred to as the war on terrorism pits these decentralized observation-orientation-decision-action terror groups against armed forces originally (OODA) loop. Military analyst John Boyd designed to defeat an industrialized and cen- developed the OODA loop theory to de - tralized enemy—the Soviet Union. Though scribe communication within the military the Iraqi insurgency has modified thinking,

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the U.S. paradigm of warfare is still largely forces updating commanders—and not the aimed at traditional theater warfare and more conventional hierarchical model. As attrition and its communications reflect this more forces became involved, however, more conventional model of warfare. On the reliance on hierarchical communications and other hand, terrorists hope to cut off military decision making increased and successes forces and aim at society in general. The ter- were less frequent. Too often American rorist threat demands a reappraisal of com- forces were handcuffed by the hierarchical munication assets. The challenge is how best and rigid OODA loop that traveled half to engage terrorists such that the bureau- a world away to CENTCOM for relevant cratic OODA loop helps rather than inter- decisions. feres with a rapid response. Similar bureaucratic concerns affect the Those who advocate hierarchical systems battle against terrorism on the domestic point to the success of “smart bombs,” satel- front. Formation of the Department of lites, and other technology to target a threat Homeland Security in the aftermath of the accurately while posing the least threat to 2001 attacks led to years of organizational your own forces. Others call for more use turf wars and confusion despite huge spend- of human resources and intelligence. Put ing increases. Yet public security agencies another way, the OODA decision loop needs including police and fire units continued to to remain in the hands of the soldier on the complain of radios that could not intercom- ground. A compelling argument can be municate in emergency situations. Overlaps made for increased military training to in responsibility and unwillingness to share encourage independent thinking and more information across the military services, the rapid decisions. In addition, the soldier on National Security Agency, the Central Intel- the ground must have the necessary ability ligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of to correctly orient forces and the agility Investigation (there are sixteen agencies con- required to shift from one orientation to cerned with national intelligence) slowed another. the nation’s response to natural disaster Early operations in Afghanistan in 2002 (Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example) as demonstrated the value of agility in orienta- well as border security and more specific tion and communication. Decisions during terrorist threats. There is yet no clear agree- the initial phases of ground combat revealed ment on what vital infrastructure has to be a military very competent to make rapid protected, let alone by whom and how. A real-time decisions. Special Forces recog- National Counterterrorism Center was nized that the technological advantage formed in 2005 in an attempt to coordinate enjoyed by U.S. forces also needed supple- across the variety of national and regional menting with local methods—horseback, security agencies. local clothing, beards to reduce the likeli- The communications dilemma posed by hood of being recognized as American, and what are really numerous wars on terrorism so forth. Special Forces on the ground under- is quite clear: Communication from the bot- stood the intent and goals of commanders at tom up allows for a more localized under- Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, standing of the situation but leaves decisions Florida, and made decisions accordingly. in the hands of less-senior military forces. Their communications were typically of field Coordination across forces and agencies is

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vital. The continuing war on terrorism pre- and other communications network users sents a host of challenges. to exchange information both internal and Matthew Wahlert external to the theater, from wired or wireless See also Gulf War (1990–1991); Iraq War telephones, computers (Internet-like capa- (2003–Present); National Security Agency bility) or video terminals. WIN-T employs (NSA); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) a combination of terrestrial, airborne, and satellite-based communication links to pro- Sources vide robust connectivity. It will also interface Friedman, George, and Meredith Friedman. 1996. The Future of War: Power, Technology, and with the developing Global Information Grid American World Dominance in the 21st Century. to allow worldwide connectivity. New York: Random House. The system makes use of highly mobile, Hammes, Thomas X. 2004. The Sling and the high-capacity line-of-sight radios using Stone: On War in the 21st Century. St. Paul, quick-erect antenna masts, fiber optic cable, MN: Zenith Press. and wide-band digital radios that will pro- Peters, Ralph. 1999. Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph? Mechanicsburg, PA: vide the transmission capacity necessary to Stackpole Books. communicate information required by mod- Vandergriff, Donald. 2002. The Path to Victory. ern forces in the field. The radios will provide Novato, CA: Presidio Press. connectivity to form a backbone transmission Wilcox, Greg, and Gary I. Wilson. 2002. network and will replace current low band- “Military Response to Fourth Generation Warfare in Afghanistan.” [Online article; width radios. For range extension, WIN-T retrieved December 2005.] Reprinted at will use unmanned aerial vehicles and satel- http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/wilson_wilcox lite systems to connect command posts. Users _military_responses.htm. will be able to view Web pages and place voice and video calls on a handset that will interface with a network of satellite and ter- Warfighter Information restrial-based sites. Network–Tactical (WIN-T) The program will cost $10 billion to develop and put into place. Initial design The Warfighter Information Network– and testing concluded late in 2005. The first Tactical (WIN-T) is the U.S. Army’s develop- Army unit is scheduled to field WIN-T by ing tactical telecommunications system. It 2008, as the system begins to replace the cur- will consist of communication infrastructure rent mobile subscriber unit system. Unlike and network components designed to oper- most current military networks, WIN-T will ate from the maneuver battalion on the front offer seamless interoperability with other line to a war theater’s rear boundary. networks, including legacy, joint, coalition, The WIN-T network is designed to provide and even commercial networks, utilizing all and combine command, control, communica- available links to support Army units any- tions, computers, intelligence, surveillance, where. The system will utilize commercially and reconnaissance support capabilities that available elements and will be able to inte- are mobile, secure, survivable, seamless, and grate with existing as well as new systems, capable of supporting multimedia tactical with dedicated links designed specifically information systems within a battle area. for the military. WIN-T will allow all Army commanders Christopher H. Sterling

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See also Communication Satellites; Fiber Optics; on 1 March 1956. Training was carried out on Future Combat Systems (FCS); Global the basis of modified programs of the Soviet Information Grid (GIG); Internet; Mobile army. Equipment was of either Soviet or Ger- Communications man origin and the technical standard was Sources equivalent to that of the German army at the U.S. Army. 1999. Warfighter Information end of World War II. Between 1957 and 1969, Network–Tactical (WIN-T) Operational Require- development was characterized by the adap- ments Document (November 5). [Online tation of the structures of the Warsaw Treaty article; retrieved June 2006.] http://www Organization to suit the needs of the National .fas.org/man/. Wood, Camilla A. 2005. “Warfighter Informa- Peoples Army. Improvements in education tion Network–Tactical.” [Online article; and combat readiness were made within the retrieved June 2006.] http://www signal corps. Modernization of communica- .highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp tion equipment progressed rapidly. ?DOCID=1G1:135813080&ctrlInfo=Round During the 1970s, responsibility for the 20%3AMode20a%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=. electronics of flight safety was absorbed by the corps, which became the Signal and Flight Safety Corps (Nachrichten und Flugsich- Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) erungstruppen). Independent battalions were responsible for flight safety links on airfield The Soviet-directed Warsaw Pact alliance zones and for the radio navigation and air- was developed in response to the creation of craft radio communications within the the North Atlantic Treaty Organization whole of East Germany. Radio, radar, and (NATO) in 1949. During much of its exis- illumination systems were in cluded under tence, the Warsaw Pact (named for the Polish their responsibility. The battalions were capital where the treaty was signed on 14 attached to joint fighter-wing command May 1955) essentially functioned as a part of posts and the radio technical (radar) troops. the Soviet Ministry of Defense. In its early The East German signal corps was absorbed years, the Warsaw Pact served as one of the into the West German Fernmeldetruppe with Soviet Union’s primary mechanisms for reunification in 1990. keeping its East European allies (Poland, In 1968, following the pact’s invasion of East Germany [as of 1956], Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia (ending the “Prague Spring” Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and—until liberalization movement), Romania de- 1962—Albania) under its political and mili- manded the withdrawal from its territory of tary control. But the Soviets took no steps to all Soviet troops and advisers. In the 1970s integrate the various armies into a multina- and 1980s, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and tional force. After uprisings in Poland and East Germany (and sometimes Cuba) Hungary in 1956, however, military exercises became the primary Soviet proxies for trans- with Soviet forces and the allied national ferring arms and military advice and advis- armies became the focus of Warsaw Pact mil- ers to the Third World. By the 1980s, the itary activities. Soviet Union provided 73 of the 126 Warsaw With the creation of the East German Pact tank and motorized rifle divisions. The National Peoples Army early in 1956, a Sig- Warsaw Pact countries provided forward nal Corps (Nachrichtentruppen) was formed bases, staging areas, and interior lines of

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communication for the Soviets against communications and to develop interoper- NATO. The pact collapsed with the end of ability with other member nations. Military the Soviet state in 1991. spending (as a portion of gross domestic Through all of this changing role of the product) increased accordingly in each for- Warsaw Pact, as one might expect, Soviet mer pact country, Poland’s military being communications gear and systems con- twice the size of the other two nations’ com- nected and controlled the various military bined. The necessary communications links services. At first considerable use was made between Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest of captured wartime German radio and with NATO headquarters in Brussels were other equipment, but as that wore out and put into place even before the three former could not be replaced, Soviet communica- Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO. NATO tions equipment became dominant. Some of soon funded upgrades and established basic it was quite good, but much was of an earlier communications links between each coun- electronic generation or lower standard and try’s operations center for air defense and the thus demonstrated lower capabilities than alliance’s air defense system. Several other comparable NATO equipment and systems. former pact countries (including Slovakia, Soviet planning by the 1970s emphasized Romania, and Bulgaria) joined NATO early ensuring the continued operation of the in 2004. Soviet Union’s own command, control, and Cliff Lord and Christopher H. Sterling communications while attacking those of See also Baltic Nations; Eastern Europe; NATO. Its doctrine of radio electronic com- Germany: Army; Russia/Soviet Union: bat indicated a strong commitment to coor- Army dinated use of electronic means to degrade Sources NATO’s ability to communicate. Direct Cronican, John G., Jr. 1981. “Centralized Control attack by Warsaw Pact military forces might and Decentralized Execution.” [Online take the form of sabotage on existing article; retrieved April 2006.] http://www microwave radio relay sites, satellite earth .airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/ terminals, and major switching centers. aureview/1981/jan-feb/cronican.htm. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division. NATO radio equipment in the high- 1990. “Appendix C: The Warsaw Pact.” frequency, tropospheric scatter, and micro - [Online information; retrieved April 2006.] wave realms was considered particularly http://www.country-data.com/frd/cs/ vulnerable to pact jamming and exploitation. soviet_union/su_appnc.html. But Warsaw Pact nations never had suffi- cient budgets to overcome the West’s com- munications leadership. Waterloo, Battle of (18 June 1815) As the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the former Soviet satellite nations were sad- The Battle of Waterloo, fought on 18 June dled with poor and rudimentary modes of 1815, was the seminal confrontation that communication. When (in March 1999) finally ended Napoleon’s domination of Poland, the Czech Republic (Slovakia broke Europe. After a brutal day of fighting and off in 1993), and Hungary became members heavy losses, the eventual outcome was of NATO, a primary and immediate goal decided, in part, by problems of judgment, was to substantially upgrade their military coordination, and communications on both

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sides. Weather (it had rained hard the night failed to see real action at either Quatre-Bras before) had a deleterious impact on field or Ligny because of another confusion of conditions, making effective communication orders. Napoleon had sent a single messen- all the more vital. ger to tell General Emmanuel Grouchy to This battle relied almost totally for its com- stop pursuing Marshal Blücher’s Prussian munications on the use of couriers either on force and to return to join the main French foot or horseback. Sending messages this force facing the Duke of Wellington’s allies. way meant a delay in instructions being car- But Grouchy, besides being slow to act, did ried out, and there was a high chance of not even receive this order until 7:00 p.m., their being intercepted and never arriving. well after the battle’s outcome had already Given the numbers of troops involved and been established. Thus his 70,000 French the distances involved, couriers had poten- troops would not assist when they might tially fatal results if communication failed. have made a substantial difference. Napoleon did not have any system in place Nor was all well with the allies. For one (even duplicate couriers) to ensure that his thing, unlike the French, Wellington’s force orders had been received. Smoke on the bat- had to work with multiple languages (Ger- tlefield also made visual signaling difficult. man, English, and Dutch—among others) Centralization of the French command and several armies spread across consider- portended trouble if Napoleon’s signals and able ground. Coordination and communica- intentions could not be received in the field, tion with the advancing Prussian force under for his commanders had learned over the Gebhard von Blücher (who spoke no Eng- years not to act independently of the lish) was, as Winston Churchill later put it, emperor’s wishes. And those wishes varied, mysteriously defective. For much of the day, for Napoleon was ill that day and was not Wellington was poorly informed as to where making his usual incisive and rapid deci- the Prussians were. Only their late afternoon sions. Further, his usual communications arrival finally turned the tide of battle for officer had died at the beginning of the Wellington. month, and Napoleon appointed a replace- Yet at times, signals could be patently ment, Marshal Nicolas Soult. Although Soult simple—as when Wellington appeared on was a good operations officer, he was inex- the skyline at the end of the battle and perienced and lacked foresight in organizing merely waved his large black hat to signal the dissemination of battle orders. Delays in for a general allied pursuit of retreating effective communications and orders during French troops. By early July, the allied force the long day of battle would cost the French entered Paris. heavily. Christopher H. Sterling For example, Marshal Michel Ney failed to See also Couriers; Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815) capture Quatre-Bras because he delayed attack and was waiting for further commu- Sources nication. In command of Napoleon’s Old Adkin, Mark. 2002. The Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History’s Most Famous Land Guard and in the thick of the fighting, Ney Battle. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole. could not see the overall battle or observe Barbero, Allesandro. 2005. The Battle: A New British troop positions on the ridge above the History of Waterloo, translated by John Cullen. battlefield. Similarly, comte d’Erlon’s corps New York: Walker.

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Weapons Data Link Network Welchman, Gordon (1906–1985) (WDLN) Gordon Welchman was one of the most important British World War II code breakers The Weapons Data Link Network (WDLN) at Bletchley Park. is a developing American networked system Welchman was born in England on 15 of guided missile control, allowing common June 1906, son of the archdeacon of Bristol. two-way communication links between air After studying as a mathematics scholar at crews, ground personnel, and the in-flight Trinity College (part of Cambridge Univer- weapon itself. WDLN is part of the trend sity) from 1925 to 1928, Welchman became a toward net-centric military communications research fellow and then lectured in mathe- in the early 2000s. matics at Sidney Sussex College for a decade Primarily an Air Force and Navy program beginning in 1929. with some participation by the Army and He joined the Government Code & Cipher Marine Corps, WDLN was created as an School at Bletchley Park in September 1939 initial effort to integrate network-enabled and was soon playing a central role in devel- weapons into the Global Information Grid. oping its code-breaking process in 1939– Developing information exchange standards 1940. He served as head of Hut Six from for weapons and their controllers is seen 1940 to 1943, the section at Bletchley Park as an important part of increased inter - responsible for breaking German army and operability. air force Enigma ciphers. Welchman then A series of 140 WDLN flight tests in became Bletchley’s assistant director for October–November 2005 demonstrated that mechanization (of code breaking). air crews and ground controllers could use Welchman made two crucial contributions the same two-way communications links for to the British code-breaking operation. In his sending guided weapons to their targets. first, he designed the organization that Inflight updates are a central part of the sys- would operate on shifts for twenty-four tem, invaluable for seeking moving targets, hours a day throughout the war. His second often a vital part of counterterrorism actions. concerned an electromechanical device. In Ground or air crews can communicate target his early code-breaking effort, Welchman changes to the weapon and the latter can developed an enhancement to Alan Turing’s report their own status. design for an electromechanical code- Development of WDLN is projected to breaking machine, dubbed the “bombe.” extend into 2008–2010 before full-scale adop- Welchman’s enhancement, the “diagonal tion, and essential aspects of it will probably board,” rendered the bombes more efficient be applied to other weapons systems. Christopher H. Sterling (by dramatically reducing the number of false “stops” they encountered and making See also Airplanes; Global Information Grid it much easier to devise bombe “menus”) in (GIG); Information Revolution in Military helping to break messages enciphered on Affairs (IRMA) the Enigma machine. After the first bombe Source with such a diagonal board was installed at Tuttle, Richard. 2006. “Widening the Net.” Bletchley Park in August 1940, bombes Aviation Week, February 26, 59–61. became a primary tool for helping code

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breakers solve Enigma “keys” for the re - Enigma machine. Possible further prosecu- mainder of the war. Some 200 were built. tion was deflected by Welchman’s death on Welchman was one of four Bletchley Park 8 October 1985. code breakers who broke the line of author- Christopher H. Sterling ity to appeal for more personnel. In a 21 See also Bletchley Park; Code Breaking; October 1941 letter, hand delivered to 10 Enigma; Government Code & Cipher Downing Street for Prime Minister Winston School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); Signals Intelli- Churchill, Welchman and his colleagues gence (SIGINT); Turing, Alan Mathison indicated that Bletchley needed more staff (1912–1954) and resources to get the vital code breaking Sources done. (The others were Alan Turing, Stuart Welchman, Gordon. 1982. The Hut Six Story: Milner Barry, and Hugh Alexander.) Chur - Breaking the Enigma Code. New York: chill ordered immediate “Action this Day” to McGraw-Hill. see that Bletchley received all it required on West, Nigel. 1988. The SIGINT Secrets: The a top-priority basis, and he wanted to know Signals Intelligence War, 1900 to Today, Including the Prosecution of Gordon this had been done. Reorganization of Welchman. Rev. ed. New York: William Bletchley’s leadership and operation was Morrow. one result. Welchman moved to the United States in 1948 and began working with computers and information technology, becoming an White House Communications American citizen. He joined the Mitre Corpo- Agency (WHCA) ration in 1962, working in Bedford, Massa- chusetts. For the fist time since the war, he The White House Communications Agency was again working on secure and survivable (WHCA) was created as the White House communications systems, this time for the Signal Detachment by the War Department U.S. military. And his focus changed, for on 25 March 1942, early in American partic- now his concern was how to develop secure ipation in World War II. A new radio system systems rather than break them. had been installed in the White House After his retirement, while still doing some immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack consulting work for the U.S. government, in December 1941. he published The Hut Six Story (1982), one of The detachment was activated under con- the first “inside” analyses explaining exactly trol of the Military District of Washington to how Bletchley Park code breakers had oper- provide normal and emergency communica- ated. The last 100 pages detailed his concerns tions requirements in support of the presi- about the status of Cold War secure com- dent. The detachment provided mobile munications. Though much of the World radio, teletype, telephone, and cryptographic War II code-breaking process had been aids in the White House and at the presiden- declassified, Welchman ran into trouble with tial retreat, which President Franklin Roo- the Official Secrets Act given the level of sevelt called Shangri-La, now known as detail included in his book. His security Camp David. In 1954, during the Eisen- clearance was lifted and he was banned from hower administration, the detachment was any detailed discussion of the wartime reorganized under the Office of the Chief

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Signal Officer and renamed the White House House to nearly a thousand staff in the self- Army Signal Agency. supporting joint service command. Head- The agency was transferred in 1962 to the quarters for WHCA is at the Anacostia Navy auspices of the Defense Communications Yard in Washington DC. Agency staff also Agency under operational control of the work at the Washington Radio Network Sys- White House Military Office, and became tem in downtown Washington and serve in the White House Communications Agency. detachments in Maryland and Maine, with WHCA played significant roles in many communication support teams in Arizona historical events during World War II, the and Texas. Korean War, the Vietnam War, and opera- Christopher H. Sterling tions in Panama, Guatemala, the Middle See also Defense Information Systems Agency East, and Somalia. WHCA was also a key (DISA) communication link during the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963 and the Sources attempts on the lives of Presidents Gerald Hill, Laura. 2003. “White House Communica- Ford (1975) and Ronald Reagan (1981). The tions Agency Transforms to Meet New Challenges.” [Online article; retrieved June 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks greatly 2006.] http://www.findarticles.com/p/ increased the focus on secure communica- articles/mi_m0PAA/is_1_28/ai_103992792. tions by WHCA. Jacques, March Laree. 1999. “Transformation Today, the president, vice president, and and Redesign in the White House Communi- their staffs have the use of both secure and cations Agency.” Quality Management Journal 6 (3). nonsecure telephones, as well as data and Sutherland, Don. 1990 “No Busy Signal— facsimile systems. WHCA runs the White Instant Worldwide Communications.” Air - House signal switchboard, which handles man Magazine (May). [Online article; retrieved 2,500 calls a day. The audiovisual unit sets up June 2006.] http://www.disa .mil/whca/. sound systems, microphones, and lighting for the press conferences or other presiden- tial functions such as speeches and state din- Wireless Telegraph Board ners. WHCA sets up and records radio broadcasts for the president from any loca- Appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt tion around the world. WHCA videotapes in 1904, this panel, made up primarily of presidential movements, processes film from Army and Navy officers, developed the first official White House photographers, and American policy for wireless communica- makes video recordings for the White House tions, assigning most authority to the U.S. and staff. Navy. It provided an important boost to both For quick trips overseas, a team of at least naval and Army radio efforts. twenty goes out five days in advance to Often called “The Roosevelt Board,” the establish needed communication links— panel of officials was appointed on 24 June more extended trips require forty-five per- 1904 by the president, acting on a recom- sonnel three weeks in advance. mendation of the secretary of the navy. The agency has evolved over six decades Three Navy officers, General Adolphus from a small team of thirty-two personnel Greely of the Army Signal Corps, and a rep- working out of the basement of the White resentative of the weather bureau (then in

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the Department of Agriculture) were Sources assigned the task of determining the role of Howeth, L. N. 1963. “The Roosevelt Board.” In radio in the federal government. Despite the History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, 76–77. Washington, DC: recent innovation of wireless, or radio, Government Printing Office. already evident during the board’s proceed- Wireless Telegraph Board. 1904. Wireless Telegra- ings was the jealously guarded territory of phy: Report of the Interdepartmental Board several government agencies already exper- Appointed by the President to Consider the imenting with or applying the technology. Entire Question of Wireless Telegraphy in the Service of the National Government. Washing- Yet the board reached unanimous conclu- ton, DC: Government Printing Office. sions, assigning a dominant role to the Navy. The report of 29 July 1904 concluded that the Navy was to provide coastal communi- cations for government use, including the World War I receipt and transmission of radio messages to and from ships at sea, unless commercial At least three factors made the 1914–1918 services were able to take on that task. The world war vastly different from earlier con- weather bureau was to turn over its wireless flicts: widely separated battlefronts, rapid transmitters to the Navy. The Army was improvements in technology, and a growing granted the right to erect and operate radio reliance on fast-changing modes of commu- stations as needed subject to not interfering nication. No prior war had taken place on so with the coastal stations operated by the many disparate fronts on more different ter- Navy. Finally, the board recommended that rain, or with forces on land, at sea, and in the Congress adopt legislation to prevent air. While armed forces of both the Central monopoly in radio and that administration powers (chiefly Germany, Austria-Hungary, of such concerns—as well as the licensing of and the Ottoman Empire) and the Allies (pri- private or commercial transmitters—should marily Britain, France, and Russia, and after be assigned to the Department of Commerce 1917, the United States) moved with dispatch and Labor. from reliance on visual and mechanical sig- The report, merely twenty-four pages long naling to applying electrical communication (and eighteen of those were appended doc- systems, results were often less than those uments), had considerable impact on mili- sought. Military and naval communication tary communications, as virtually all of its varied from the use of flags to messages car- recommendations were adopted. The panel ried by wire via voice or electric current, concluded that “wireless telegraphy is of including some of the first air-to-ground sys- paramount interest” to the Army and Navy tems aboard airplanes and dirigibles. in both peace and war “and that such use Static trench warfare on the Western Front shall be unrestricted.” Needs of the military, required widespread use of pyrotechnic sig- and especially the Navy, were to be para- nals and whistles to shift troops in or out of mount in any consideration of radio’s devel- trenches, or warn of gas attacks. Much battle opment in the United States. terrain was flat, handicapping sending and Christopher H. Sterling receiving of visual signals. As General R. See also Greely, Adolphus W. (1844–1935); Nalder (later head of the Royal Corps of Sig- Radio nals) later noted, visual signaling fell into

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disfavor at the front because it was conspic- gap devices with which the war began. uous and placed participants in danger. Allied radio equipment improved more than Artillery smoke made seeing anything diffi- did that of Germany as devices became stan- cult. It was more often the messenger, rider dardized over the last two years of the war. (on horseback, bicycle, motorcycle, or small On the Western Front after 1916 radio oper- vehicle), dog, or pigeon that actually carried ators also made use of conduction Fuller- the day. Opposing trenches were so close in phones and French systems. some areas that voice commands could be Several key battles, including those of the readily overheard. Marne and Tannenberg (both 1914), were Telegraphers (not yet part of the British decided in part by which side made the most signal arm, they operated as a part of the effective use of communications, including Royal Engineers) began to take precedence. wireless. Radio was more useful away from Telephones were increasingly applied at the trench-bound Western Front (in the Mid- headquarters level. Wire lines for telegraphy dle East and East Africa, for example) where and telephony had to be either strung or alternative modes of communication were buried. That was best done along roadways, rare as was the likelihood of signal interfer- but as opposing forces often shelled roads to ence or enemy code breaking. interdict communications, hand carts were This varied communication activity soon used to string wire cross-country. Wire strung prompted large increases in personnel from poles could all too easily be cut by rifle assigned to signal duties on both sides. All or shell fire. Along front lines, wire had to be countries ramped up training programs for laid, buried if conditions permitted, or run radio and wired communication operators. along special communication trenches. There The U.S. Navy supervised a mandatory seemed no completely safe place for wire—in pooling of private patents “for the duration” some African areas, giraffes broke wires and to encourage manufacture of the best possi- white ants ate cable insulation. ble equipment. The U.S. Army established a Military radio equipment in 1914 was large Signal Corps research center that crude. Antennas were obvious targets, and became Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which equipment was fragile, cumbersome, and developed improved transmitters for use on vulnerable to weather or enemy action. land and in the air. There were few trained operators and never While the Army Signal Corps in 1917 enough radios were available (a U.S. Army included but fifty-five officers and 1,600 division of 20,000 men rarely had more than enlisted men, in just eighteen months, by six radios even in 1918). But radio’s biggest Armistice Day (11 November 1918) those drawback was the lack of senior comman- numbers had grown to 2,700 officers and ders willing to use or trust it in battlefield 53, 300 men. The corps built some 1,700 miles conditions. Poorly organized at first, Army of poles to carry 20,700 miles of wire. Another radio users also suffered from security 2,000 miles of poles with 28,000 miles of wire breaches such as sending vital messages in were leased from the French. The corps oper- the clear rather than in code. Wireless equip- ated 82,000 miles of wire in France alone, not ment on both sides steadily improved with including wire for 200 telephone exchanges continuous-wave vacuum tube transmitters nor wire used by combat units. Millions of of 1918, little resembling the cranky spark- telegrams were sent by the Army before 1919.

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Naval signaling used both traditional and Early naval actions in 1914–1915 featured newer methods. The 1918 Royal Navy Hand- attacks on the communications of opposing book of Signalling, for example, described use forces. German and Allied naval actions, for of nearly twenty different signal systems: flags example, included capturing or destroying and pendants via flaghoist, semaphore signs outlying enemy radio transmitting sites in and flags, Morse code (sent in daylight by flag the Pacific, Africa, and elsewhere. Cutting of waving, signal lantern, heliograph, or wireless German telegraph cable connections between telegraphy; at night using signal lanterns or Europe and North America forced German wireless; and in foggy conditions by sound use of radio telegraphy—which could be signals), flag waving, telephone, heliograph, intercepted by Allied code breakers. Indeed, and special means to communicate with the just such an interception, in this case of the Army. Flaghoisted flags included the twenty- infamous “Zimmermann Telegram” in early seven flags of the International Code of 1917, would lead to American entry into the Signals along with the Navy’s sixty-four oth- war. World War I witnessed the rapid devel- ers—thirty-one flags, nineteen pennants, opment of aerial communications. Early air- eleven triangles, and three burgees. Combina- craft were essentially limited to observation, tions of these allowed for a more sophisti- and like the balloon of fifty years earlier, fly- cated means of signaling than was often ing was a function assigned initially to signal available on land. corps. Many rather simple systems were At the same time, radio was also used devised for communicating with aircraft from effectively in both the British and German the ground below. These included panels of fleets and became an essential element cloth in various shapes, patterns, and colors. in such large naval battles as Jutland (31 May Lights were also used. Inventive military 1916). Distance, darkness, or smoke all minds began to use aircraft to spot and pho- made visual signals questionable. As spark- tograph enemy positions. Early signaling gap equipment was replaced by better arc from the air was more limited—often to mes- (1916–1917) and then vacuum tube–powered sages dropped to the ground. equipment (1918), naval radio’s value Only with the development of effective improved further. Radio direction-finding (and relatively lightweight) ground-to-aircraft techniques, developed before but vastly radio could the airplane become a more effec- improved during the war, made wireless sig- tive fighter, and ultimately a bomber. Radio naling at sea dangerous, as triangulation also contributed to the coordinated use of could readily locate a ship’s transmitter thus German Zeppelins as bombers. But as hap- placing the vessel at risk from submarine pened on the ground, German leadership in attack. Knowing this danger, allied convoys radio at the start of the war had diminished of merchantmen usually maintained radio by its end, by which time the Royal Air Force silence (relying on visual signals), as did had 600 radio-equipped airplanes and more most military vessels while on patrol. The than 2,000 ground stations. Between 12–15 German cruiser Emden, for example, was September 1918, Brigadier General Billy successful as a wide-ranging commerce Mitchell led nearly 1,500 aircraft to the St. raider for a long period in 1914 largely by Mihiel area in the largest bombing effort of keeping radio silence. Electronic jamming the war, foretelling what was to come. of enemy radio signals was often attempted, David L. Woods and Christopher H. Sterling though usually with little effect.

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See also Airplanes; Airships and Balloons; uniformed personnel. As with most recent Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890–1954); wars, conflict sped up the pace of technolog- Army Signal Corps; Ferrié, Gustave-Auguste ical development. And improving modes of (1868–1932); Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Fullerphone; Ground Radio; Hooper, communication played a central part in all Stanford C. (1884–1955); Jutland, Battle of theaters and for all combatants. As with the (1916); Marne, Battle of (September 1914); prior world war, communication varied from Naval Radio Stations/Service; Radio Silence; the long traditional (e.g., couriers) to the new Tannenberg, Battle of (1914); Telegraph; and exotic (electric cipher machines). Far Telephone; Undersea Cables; United more than in the earlier conflict, code break- Kingdom: Royal Corps of Signals; Vacuum Tube ing and signals intelligence played an impor- tant part in the eventual Allied victory in Sources 1945. Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy, The Allied ability to research and develop chaps. 8–10. London: Institution of Electrical and then mass produce and apply cutting- Engineers. edge electronic technology was another key Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power, chaps. 4–6. New York: Stein & Day. factor in that victory. Germany and Japan Howeth, L. S. 1963. History of Communications- lacked the industrial infrastructure (even Electronics in the United States Navy, chaps. before sustained Allied bombing reduced 16–25. Washington, DC: Government that infrastructure further) to sustain such an Printing Office. effort over a long war. Thus Axis countries Moreau, Louise. 1991. “The Military Communi- cations Explosion, 1914–1918.” Antique standardized on 1937–1940 technology- Wireless Association Review 6: 135–154. based radios and other electrical equipment Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: and had to rely on them through the war, A History of Its Antecedents and Development, while Allied nations enjoyed the use of chaps. IV–XIV. London: Royal Signals steadily improved radio and other commu- Institution. nication technology. Report of the Chief Signal Officer to the Secretary of War. 1919. Washington, DC: Government In a global war where air power and Printing Office (reprinted by Arno Press, ground mobility were dominant factors, 1974). every combatant made extensive use of Schubert, Paul. 1928. “Era of Military Use,” in radio, for the need to effectively command The Electric Word: The Rise of Radio, 85–187. and control forces took precedence over the New York: Macmillan. Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical risks of interception. Washington, London, Communication Techniques. Orlando, FL: Tokyo, and Berlin were all constantly in Martin-Marietta (reprinted by Arno Press, touch with their major field commands at 1974). home and overseas. Research during the war, especially in the United States, greatly expanded usable spectrum and World War II opened up a variety of new transmission modes. Edwin Armstrong’s newly devel- By any measure, World War II was the oped FM radio proved valuable for local largest conflict in human history. It was communication on land and sea, for fought on virtually ever continent by mili- instance, between merchant ships and their tary forces numbering in the millions. And naval escorts in a convoy. Armstrong tens of millions died—far more civilians than declined his FM patent royalties for military

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uses for the duration. By the end of the war, Dramatically improved communications virtually every Allied military vehicle and allowed political and military leaders to aircraft carried a transceiver. Relatively small micromanage distant battles, a temptation to “walkie-talkie” radios allowed infantry to which Hitler increasingly succumbed as the stay in constant communication with local war turned against Germany. His orders headquarters—one of the first demonstra- were sent through the huge underground tions of small-scale mobile communications Zossen site near Berlin, all of them coded by in wartime. the Enigma or German “Fish” codes—and The vital role of effective communications by the end of the war, most were being read stands out in specific campaigns—in the in real time (as Ultra) by the Allies. Allied Atlantic antisubmarine war (especially from radio and cable links, after plugging some 1939 to 1943), the 1940 Battle of Britain, and early weak points, generally escaped enemy the Battle of Midway in mid-1942 as the penetration. The American SIGABA and turning point in the Pacific war—and in British Typex cipher equipment—and the every case, Allied communications superior- SIGSALY system used by Prime Minister ity was an essential facet of eventual victory. Churchill and President Roosevelt to talk by Sometimes it was a matter of technology— telephone across the Atlantic—each of them code breaking in the Atlantic war, the Royal perfected during the war, could be operated Air Force’s integrated use of radio and radar by hastily trained personnel, yet proved in the Battle of Britain—and sometimes a invulnerable to enemy code-breaking efforts. combination of luck and technology, as in Although all sides relied on machine correctly reading Japanese intentions at Mid- encryption to protect their communications, way thanks to code breaking melded with the British Government Code & Cipher aggressive command decisions. In the end, School (at Bletchley Park) and American of course, it was a matter of brute industrial cryptanalysts (mainly at Arlington Hall and and military force that defeated Germany Nebraska Avenue) developed techniques to and Japan, though communications surely break codes (aided by captured codebooks helped. and coding machines) and eventually were The telegraph was of more limited impor- able to read enemy messages almost as tance in this war (save for widespread use of quickly as their intended recipients. Alan extensive telex and teleprinter circuits); tele- Turing and others worked at Bletchley Park phones were far more central than they had to develop early analog computers to assist been in World War I. Indeed, telephones car- in the growing code-breaking task. Frank ried two-thirds of communications within Rowlett and others helped to break Japanese the United States and some overseas sites, codes, especially the difficult Purple naval though telegraphy remained the more secure and diplomatic codes. Careful systems of long-distance communication mode. In com- monitoring of enemy radio transmissions, bat theaters, alternative routing helped to as well as traffic analysis of those signals, ensure communications continuity. While brought vital information to the Allies. The telephone switchboards had changed little ability to read enemy codes also helped in since World War I, portable field telephone several highly successful Allied deception equipment was vastly better and was widely efforts to mislead enemy commanders. At the used. same time, however, Allied code-breaking

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successes were very closely held and many fully designed leaflets intended to lower field commanders did not know the deriva- enemy soldier morale and/or induce his tion of information provided (which did desertion or surrender. They emphasized the not help skeptics believe in what they were decent treatment a prisoner would receive as told). well as bad conditions back home, and Essential radio security was sometimes declared that officers were getting better achieved by requiring total radio silence, as food and shelter than frontline soldiers. with the Japanese fleet sailing to attack These were particularly effective in Europe, Hawaii in December 1941. Another secure less so in the Pacific because of cultural dif- approach was American Army use of mem- ferences. Many millions of leaflets were bers of various Native American tribes as dropped by aircraft. “code talkers” communicating messages by As in World War I, though even more so simply speaking their own languages, which here, growing communication needs again were totally unknown to the Germans or led to extensive programs devoted to train- Japanese. Lonely island-based coast watch- ing the thousands of radio operators needed ers communicated (usually with radio, occa- on land, at sea, and in the air. The variety of sionally with couriers) vital information more sophisticated systems (including lim- during the Pacific campaign, keeping Allied ited use of television), especially those for air forces up to date on Japanese moves, at great and naval forces, required longer and more risk to themselves. specialized training efforts. Battlefronts were not always mobile. Com- World War II could not have been fought munication links, both wired and wireless, without modern communication technolo- were made a central part of massive defen- gies. Armies and navies (and increasingly sive fortifications including American coast air forces)—and the areas over which they defenses, the French Maginot Line of the fought—were far larger and could move 1930s, and the German-built Atlantic Wall of more quickly than traditional means of com- the early 1940s. These links could not, how- municating could have controlled. ever, overcome the fatal weaknesses of static Christopher H. Sterling defenses in a mobile war. See also Airplanes; Arlington Hall; Armstrong, All sides applied propaganda lessons Edwin Howard (1890–1954); Army learned during the first war in the second. Of Airways Communications System, Airways all the fighting powers, German propaganda and Air Communications Service (AACS, was clearly the best synchronized with its 1938–1961); Army Signal Corps; Atlantic, military effort. Film and radio (broadcasting Battle of the (1939–1945); Atlantic Wall; Bletchley Park; Britain, Battle of (1940); was new to this war) helped promote fear of Code Breaking; Code Talkers; Deception; German arms, as did bright poster art and Electric Cipher Machine (ECM Mark II, printed media. Psychological operations on “SIGABA”); Enigma; German “Fish” Codes; the tactical level were first used on a large Germany: Air Force; Germany: Army; scale during World War II, and in all theaters, Germany: Naval Intelligence (B-Dienst); though with varied impact. By late in the Germany: Navy; Government Code & Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); war, psychological warfare units often oper- High-Speed Morse; Identification, Friend ated even at the small-unit level. The most or Foe (IFF); Japan: Air Force; Japan: successful Allied military efforts were care- Army; Japan: Navy (Nippon Teikoku Kaigun);

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Magic; Maginot Line; Midway, Battle of (3–6 “loosely knit confederation” of systems, June 1942); Mobile Communications; National WWMCCS lacked the centralized design, pro- Research Council (NRC); Nebraska Avenue, curement, and operations needed to perform Washington DC; Office of Strategic Services (OSS); Propaganda and Psychological its mission successfully on a consistent basis. Warfare; Radio; Rowlett, Frank B. (1908–1998); Through the 1950s the U.S. Department SIGSALY; Talk Between Ships (TBS); of Defense (DoD) operated several com- Telephone; Teleprinter/Teletype; Turing, Alan mand-and-control systems including the Mathison (1912–1954); Ultra; United National Military Command Center, the Kingdom: Royal Air Force; United Kingdom: Alternate National Military Command Cen- Royal Corps of Signals; United Kingdom: Royal Navy; V-Mail; Y Service; Zossen, ter, and the North American Air Defense Germany Command headquarters, in addition to the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, Semi- Sources Automatic Ground Environment, and Strate- Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy. gic Air Command (SAC) Automated History of Technology Series 26, chaps. Command and Control, among others. In 8–10. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. May 1960 DoD put these systems under uni- Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power, fied control to become the Defense Commu- chaps. 8–10. New York: Stein & Day. nications System, managed by the Defense Kent, Barrie. 1993. Signal! A History of Signalling Communications Agency. In October 1962, a in the Royal Navy, chaps. 10–13, 21–22. concept of operations for WWMCCS sought Clanfield, UK: Hyden House. Nalder, R. F. H. 1953. The History of British Army to integrate all of these systems. Signals in the Second World War. London: At the same time, automated data pro- Royal Signals Institution. cessing (ADP) was seen as the best means to Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the handle increasing levels of message traffic. Message Through: A Branch History of the US The incompatibility of ADP equipment pur- Army Signal Corps, chaps. 7–8. Washington, chased by the separate services, however, DC: Office of Military History. Sexton, Daniel J. 1996. Signals Intelligence in complicated matters. An attempt to correct World War II: A Research Guide. Westport, CT: this problem resulted in the WWMCCS Greenwood. Intercomputer Network, a centrally man- Terrett, Dulany, et al. 1956–1966. The Signal aged information processing and exchange Corps. U.S. Army in World War II: The Techni- network. It was this system that DoD relied cal Services, 3 vols. Washington, DC: Govern- ment Printing Office. on to manage the military responses to the crises of the 1970s. In the early 1980s DoD decided to mod- ernize WWMCCS; by 1983 contracts were World Wide Military Command awarded to develop an evolutionary up - and Control System (WWMCCS) grade known as the WWMCCS Information System (WIS). In September 1992 DoD termi- Operating from 1963 to 1996, the World Wide nated the WIS and replaced it with the Military Command and Control System Global Command and Control System, (WWMCCS) was a centralized system to which became operational in 1996. access information and communicate direc- WWMCCS performance through the tives to American military forces. Labeled a years was inconsistent. Very early on it

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worked well. When an American plane was had never been designed or built with inter- shot down in East Germany in 1964, the fact operability in mind: They could often work was known in Washington within seven well individually but not together. Also, the minutes of its occurrence. The messages had military culture in this period was hostile to been conveyed by WWMCCS. In the follow- interservice cooperation. Service systems ing years, however, it failed at critical times. were designed and procured at lower levels The first major instance was in 1967, when without consideration of overall require- the Israelis fired on a communications ship, ments, as centralized objectives were seen as the USS Liberty. Messages to leave the area secondary. had not been passed on to the ship in time. Robert Stacy In 1968 a similar problem with communica- See also Automatic Digital Network tions occurred when another communica- (AUTODIN); Automatic Secure Voice tions vessel, the USS Pueblo, was seized by Communications (AUTOSEVOCOM); North Korea. Communication Satellites; Communications During the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Security (COMSEC); Computer; Computer WWMCCS functioned well, but two years Security (COMPUSEC); DARPANET; later, its failures complicated the rescue of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Defense Communications crew members of the Mayaguez. When Pres- Agency (DCA, 1960–1991); Defense ident Gerald Ford requested information on Communications System (DCS); Defense the availability of carriers in the Pacific, the Switched Network (DSN); Gulf War system crashed. (1990–1991); Intelligence Ships; Semi- Though WWMCCS again worked very Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE); Vietnam War (1959–1975) well in its last conflict (the Gulf War of 1990– 1991), it was replaced five years later. Source There were several reasons behind the dis- Pearson, David E. 2000. The World Wide Military appointing performance of WWMCCS. First, Command and Control System: Evolution and in this period the technology did not exist to Effectiveness. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air support all of the missions that the Joint University Press. Chiefs of Staff wanted to have performed. Second, it was a collection of systems that

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Y Service gulation to determine the locations of wire- less transmission from enemy aircraft and The British “Y Service” was made up of radio airships, and thus to direct attacks on their (or wireless, in British usage) intercept or lis- flight paths. The Royal Navy set up nearly tening posts located in Britain and abroad twenty coastal listening stations to similarly before and during World War II. It was care- keep track of German navy signaling. fully coordinated to intercept as much Ger- Growing out of all these efforts was man and Italian (and some other nations’) Britain’s 1919 formation of its Government radio traffic as it could, the messages then Code and Cipher School (GC&CS). During being passed on to Bletchley Park (or regional the interwar years, the War Office operated centers) for decoding and interpretation. similar listening operations at several points The groundwork for the establishment of in the Middle East and India. When the British radio interception stations dates to Royal Navy renewed its interception interest World War I. Early on in that conflict, by in 1924, the fleet wireless telegraph operators using the new loop aerials for direction find- were organized to help as “procedure Y,” ing, British wireless operators could locate the derivation of the later designation of the enemy transmitter locations. Tracking those whole service. In 1926 the army opened a locations (later termed “traffic analysis”) was continuing listening operation for GC&CS in extremely valuable in determining where an abandoned nineteenth-century fort in enemy troop concentrations were located Chatham, east of London. It would operate even if message content could not be deter- there until moved in 1941 to Beaumanor. mined. An extensive “listening” program Finally, the Metropolitan Police got involved, had developed to tune to German telegraph interested in picking up signals from moving and telephone services from some thirty sites transmitters. along the Western Front. Results were sent to Thus the Royal Navy, War Office (army), a central cipher bureau at General Headquar- Air Ministry, and police were all operating, ters in St. Omer. Special stations used trian- largely independent of one another, by 1927.

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A GC&CS “Y” committee provided some personnel. All told, more than 8,000 military coordination of these efforts after 1928. In the and civilian operators, many of them women, late 1930s, new listening posts were set up to were involved, and all of them kept the secret tune to the growing wireless use of Ger- of the Y service for decades after the war. many, Italy, and Japan. Growth in the num- Naturally the other warring nations main- ber of Y stations continued up to and after tained similar services, though usually with the inception of World War II in 1939. lesser results as far as breaking Allied codes By 1941, the War Office had some 400 was concerned. The Germans had a limited receivers located in five widespread listening listening system in North Africa, for exam- sites. Additional transmitters focused on ple, and in 1941–1942 when British and U.S. direction finding for traffic analysis. By the codes (and use of them) were weak, Ger- end of the war the Foreign Office had many often learned a good deal about Allied approximately 800 Y staff at various loca- plans. The U.S. Navy was operating four or tions. The Foreign Office and each of the five radio monitoring sites in the Pacific three military services maintained their own before inception of hostilities late in 1941, multiple Y Service sites through the war, and it expanded that network as Allied which used fixed receiving and direction- forces moved toward Japan. finding facilities located around Britain and Of course all military services understood in the Mediterranean war zone. Britain also that the listening process was ongoing—and maintained extensive Y sites in the Indian that the best defense was the use of absolute subcontinent, Bermuda, East Africa, Iran, radio silence and utilization of other means and elsewhere. The service-operated sites of military communication. each focused on the radio traffic of their Christopher H. Sterling enemy counterpart. A few of the larger oper- See also Bletchley Park; Code, Codebooks; ations also undertook some traffic analysis Code Breaking; Enigma; Germany: Naval and decrypting duties to lighten the load at Intelligence (B-Dienst); Government Code & Bletchley Park and speed tactical informa- Cipher School (GC&CS, 1919–1946); OP-20- tion to frontline commanders. G; Radio Silence; Signals Intelligence As many enemy radio frequencies as could (SIGINT); Ultra be monitored (sets and operators were Sources always in short supply) were constantly Clayton, Aileen. 1980. The Enemy Is Listening. scanned, and a central record was kept of all London: Hutchinson. known (and new) transmitting sites. Inter- Macksey, Kenneth. 2003. The Searchers: How cept operators did not have to speak the lan- Radio Interception Changed the Course of Both World Wars. London: Cassell. guage being heard (traffic analysts clearly Pether, John. 2000. Funkers and Sparkers: Origins did), yet soon became used to the jargon and and Formation of the Y Service. Bletchley Park abbreviations regularly used by the various Reports No. 17. Bletchley Park, UK: Bletchley enemy forces. The parallel Radio Security Park Reports. Service listened on some British high fre- Piekalkiewicz, Janusz. 1992. Rommel and the Secret War in North Africa, 1941–1943: Secret quencies for any possible illicit use of radio Intelligence in the North African Campaign. by spies. Radio amateurs and other volun- West Chester, PA: Schiffer. teers were soon performing a substantial part Skillen, Hugh. 1989. Spies of the Airwaves. of the Y Service operations to free up military London: Hugh Skillen.

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Yardley, Herbert O. (1889–1958) operation was trimmed to a half-dozen workers in a budget-cutting move. Herbert Yardley was the most important When Henry Stimson became secretary of American code breaker until 1929 and, while state early in 1929, and learned that the State he later became a controversial figure, is Department was helping to support Yard- often called the father of U.S. government ley’s operation, he withdrew funding, infa- code-breaking efforts. mously stating that “Gentlemen do not read Born on 13 April 1889 in Worthington, each other’s mail.” The War Department, Indiana, Yardley became a railway telegra- having established its own code office under pher after secondary school, and then took a William Friedman in Washington, declined job as a government telegrapher in 1912. He in May 1929 to continue Yardley’s effort on moved to Washington DC and became a its own. code clerk at the State Department. After Yardley now faced a crisis of income and American entry into World War I in 1917, decided to write about his code-breaking Yardley entered the Army as a first lieu- experiences over the past dozen years. The tenant, assigned to code making and break- result was publication of The American Black ing work at the Army War College, where he Chamber (1931), which became a best seller in soon established the country’s first commu- several languages. Engagingly written and nications intelligence operation within the filled with anecdotes, the book exposed MI-8 division. He hired a staff and even American methods and successes against undertook work for the Navy, which then a number of countries during and after lacked its own such office. One episode of World War I. When he tried to follow this code breaking led to the apprehension and success with another book, however, the execution of a German spy crossing the Mex- government stepped in and confiscated the ican border. Others required a mass attack on manuscript. many encrypted messages to break a mili- Yardley’s later life was a constant search for tary code. By the end of the war, more than a continuing role. He accepted an offer from 150 military and civilian workers were China to help it establish a code-breaking employed in Yardley’s operation, which had effort, and was based in Chungking in 1938– read more than 10,000 messages in some fifty 1940 (while there, he wrote a book that different codes and ciphers. appeared long after his death). He undertook In 1919 Yardley established the Cipher code breaking for Canada in late 1941 until Bureau (later dubbed the “American Black pressure from the United States got him Chamber”), with support of the State and dropped as a security risk. Always a master War departments; New York served as its poker player, at the end of his life Yardley communications center. There two dozen wrote Education of a Poker Player, which staffers set to work on the code and cipher became a best seller. But long before the systems of foreign nations as reflected in book’s commercial success, Yardley died on 7 their diplomatic telegrams. A major success, August 1958 in Silver Spring, Maryland. made public in Yardley’s later book, was Christopher H. Sterling breaking Japanese messages concerning a See also Code Breaking; Friedman, William F. naval disarmament conference held in Wash- (1891–1969); Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald ington in 1921–1922. In 1923 the New York (1881–1971); Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)

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Sources Yardley, Herbert O. 1931. The American Black Kahn, David. 2004. The Reader of Gentlemen’s Chamber. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of Yardley, Herbert O. 1983. The Chinese Black American Codebreaking. New Haven, CT: Yale Chamber: An Adventure in Espionage. Boston: University Press. Houghton Mifflin.

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Zossen, Germany boards. Most were operational by August 1939 in time for the German attack on Located 25 miles south of Berlin, the Zossen Poland. Radio facilities were also added. underground complex of bunkers and tunnels Substantial battery backups guaranteed con- served as the protected communications nerve tinued operation even with loss of the elec- center first for the German armies under tric power grid due to air attack. The Allies Adolph Hitler’s command and later for the never discovered the existence of these back- Russian forces occupying East Germany. ups until after the war and bomb damage Originally cleared as a firing range and was largely superficial, indicating that the infantry school, by 1914, the 60,000-acre area backups had not been targets. had become Europe’s largest military base, Fast-moving Soviet forces occupied the vir- dotted with handsome buildings, some of tually intact Zossen bunker facilities on 20 which survive to this day. Bunker complexes April 1945. Most equipment was dismantled called “Maybach” (a command center) and (often quickly and thus badly) and shipped “Zeppelin” (communications) were built back to the Soviet Union. The two Maybach beginning in 1934 by the Nazi regime. The bunkers were destroyed by 1946, but the Zep- initial communications links constructed in pelin communications center was retained, 1934–1935 involved considerable redun- albeit empty of equipment. In the 1950s, new dancy to better withstand air attack. The construction reactivated the surviving Zossen Zossen bunker complex was well connected bunkers and by 1960 fear of a missile-based with subterranean links to the military com- European war led to re-equipping of the Zep- mands in central Berlin, and to a trunk cable pelin bunker area as a communications center. ring buried around the city. Priority con- It could be totally self-sufficient (including struction of the Zeppelin bunker in 1937– air circulation) for up to a month. At the 1939 involved installation of dozens of height of the Cold War between 30,000 and massive telephone and telegraph switch- 70,000 Russian soldiers and their dependents

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were based there in an extensive surface com- See also Germany: Army; Underground munity. All of this was manned for more than Communication Centers three decades, ending only when Russian Sources troops pulled out in 1994. Fischer, Jan Otakar. 2000. “Beating Swords into The long-time military zone was opened Suburbs in East Germany’s Bunker Capital.” for civilian development after the Cold War, New York Times, March 16, D1, D4. and scores of old barrack buildings have Kampe, Hans-George. 1996. The Underground since been reconditioned into apartments. Military Command Bunkers of Zossen, Germany: Tours are given in some of the surviving History of Their Construction and Use by the Wehrmacht and Soviet Army, 1937–1994. bunker sites, some of which retain their Atglen, PA: Schiffer. Soviet-era equipment. Christopher H. Sterling

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International Museums There are many military communications museums outside of the United States, many on or near military bases. To fully appreciate their content and context, vis- itors understandably should have some proficiency in a language other than English. Because of security concerns limiting public access, a number of these are best visited online; on-site visits often have to be planned well in advance. Contact information and opening hours are subject to change.

Australia Royal Australian Army Corps of Signals Museum (Molloy Road, Simpson Barracks, Macleod, Victoria 3085, Australia-03-9450-7874) is presently closed for building upgrades. Collections focus on the Corps of Signals operations in the two world wars.

Britain Bletchley Park (The Mansion, Bletchley Park, Wilton Avenue, Bletchley, Mil- ton Keynes, MK3 6EB; http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/page.cfm ?pageid=159) is the home of Britain’s top secret World War II code-breaking operation known as Ultra. Included on the site is a full-size rebuilt version of the Colossus computer developed and used at Bletchley, and a communications-electronics museum as well as a collection concerning Winston Churchill. Duxford Radio Society (Buildings 177–178, Duxford Airfield, Cambridge, England; http://www.duxfordradiosociety.org/index.html) operates a two-building museum at the Duxford Airfield museum south of Cambridge that is run by the Imperial War Museum. It is open on Sundays, and often

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on other days. Displays include Allied and captured military radio equip- ment from both world wars. Imperial War Museum (Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ, United King- dom; http:// www.iwm.org.uk/) is the premier British museum concerning the nation at war. Housed in the former mental hospital known as “Bed- lam,” the museum was substantially redesigned in the early 1990s. It is open daily except for three days around Christmas. The IWM also operates the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum near Parliament, as well as sev- eral other sites. Communications figure in many of the exhibitions. Intelligence Museum at RAF Chicksands (Dorset, United Kingdom— 01462–752341; http://www.army.mod.uk/intelligencecorps/chicksands .htm) is open by prior appointment every weekday. The museum, formed in 2000, outlines the history of British Military Intelligence from the time of Queen Elizabeth I and recounts the story of the Intelligence Corps since its formation in 1914. The Medmenham Collection covers the history of aer- ial photographic interpretation from World War I up to the present day. There are exhibits on the wartime Royal Air Force and postwar U.S. Air Force signals operations here. Naval Communications & Radar Museum (HMS Collingwood, Fareham, PO14 1AS; http://www.recelectronics.demon.co.uk/collingrad.htm) can be visited by appointment only, as the museum is on an active military base. The extensive collections focus on twentieth-century equipment from Britain and other nations. RAF Signals Museum (RAF Henlow, Bedfordshire, England; http://www .geocities.com/raf_signals_museum/) is open by appointment only. It is a relatively new and still developing facility, which includes a recreated Y Service station. Royal Signals Museum (Blandford Camp, Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 8RH, England—01258-482248; http://www.army.mod.uk/royalsignals museum/) is the national museum of army communications, and the exhibits and displays show the part that communications have played in the many wars and campaigns of the last 150 years. The museum was founded in Catterick, in North Yorkshire in the mid-1930s, and moved to Blandford Camp in 1967. A refurbished and expanded museum opened on 28 May 1997. The Web site offers a virtual tour.

Canada Military Communications and Electronics Museum (Box 17000, Station Forces, Kingston ON, Canada K7K 7B4; http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/ about_e1.htm) is open most days of the week. Housed in a handsome pur- pose-designed building that opened in 1996, the museum offers exhibits relating to the people, technology, and changing times for all of Canada’s military forces (which were merged in 1968).

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Germany German Naval Signals Headquarters (St. Jacques, near St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands; http://www.showcaves.com/english/gb/misc/German NavalSignals.html) is a museum open from April through October, on Thursday and Saturday afternoons. The facility was established in 1942, though the bunker, now home to the museum, opened in early 1944. While technically in Britain, the focus is on German wartime signaling.

Japan Yokohama World War II Japanese Radio Museum (045–301-8044; http://www .yokohamaradiomuseum.com/) has a Web site with some English caption- ing, as well as a map on finding the museum. The museum has an extensive collection of army and naval radios, some dating to World War I.

Netherlands Royal Netherlands Army Signal Corps Museum (Elias Beeckmankazerne, Nieuwe Kazernelaan 10, PO Box: 9012, 6710 HC EDE; http://www .museumverbindingsdienst.nl/gesvbddeng.html#rnascm) is open Wednes- day and Thursday afternoons only. The collection began in 1965, opened to the public four years later, and moved to its present building in 1982. The story of the Royal Netherlands Army Signal Corps, formed in 1874, forms the central part of the collection and the extensive library.

Russia Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Sappers and Signal Troops (Alex- androvsky Park 7, St. Petersburg, Russia; http://eng.peterout.ru/art/ museums/15/), located opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress, includes about 50,000 items, among them artillery weapons, cold steel arms and firearms, and items of military engineering technology (including signal- ing). One part of the exposition is demonstrated in the open air. Open Wednesday through Sunday. RKK Museum (RC&C Ltd., Sushevskaya Str., 9–4, Moscow; http://www .radiomilitari.com/r.html) is an extensive private museum focusing on military communications, especially for the Great Patriotic War (World War II) period, and including Soviet, German, and American equipment. The Web site offers English-language material and is also quite extensive.

South Africa South African Signal Corps Museum (Wonderboom Military Base, Field Box, Box 1, Pretoria 0106) was established at the Army Gymnasium in Heidel- berg (about 30 miles south of Johannesburg) around 1985. The gymnasium was then the home of the School of Signals and 1 Signal Regiment. A decade later, the School of Signals was moved to the Wonderboom Military

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Base about 12 miles north of Pretoria (where the South Africa Army Signal Formation was also located) and 1 Signal Regiment was moved to a differ- ent base. The museum was subsequently placed in storage. In 2002 volun- teers worked to reopen the museum at Wonderboom. All the equipment came out of storage, and the museum was arranged to cover telecommu- nications from the Boer War (including some very old and valuable Sie- mans and Marconi equipment dating back to the early 1900s), through the world wars, and up to the Border War/War of Liberation in the 1980s. For the latter, the museum reflects both South African equipment and that used by and captured from the Cubans, Russians, and other forces. Some com- mand-and-control and electronic warfare equipment round out the display. The museum is apparently open to the public. Sources Foundation for German Communication and Related Technologies website: http://cdv-and-t.org/. German Naval Signal Headquarters virtual tour website: http://www .occupied.guernsey.net/naval_sigs_h_q_.htm. Military Museums and Monuments links: http://www.geocities.com/ Pentagon/7087/ukmain04.htm. Signals Collection, ‘40-’45 website (a virtual museum covering several countries): http://www.qsl.net/pe1ngz/signalscollection.html. Worldwide Military Radio links: http://www.qsl.net/ab4oj/1ststeps/ links.html.

U.S. Museums There are a growing number of military communications museums in the United States, most of them on or near military bases. Many other museums include some reference to military communications, but those listed here are the museums that hold collections primarily focusing on that topic. Because of security concerns, many are best seen online, and visits often have to be planned well in advance. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, security at all military bases has been sharply increased. Contact information and opening hours are subject to change.

Air Force Communications AFCA Visitor’s Center (Building 1700, Scott AFB, IL—call (618) 229–5690 for information and access; http://www.aacsalumni.com/AFCA%20 Visitors%20Center/AFCA%20visitors%20center.html) is located not far from St. Louis, in the Illinois suburbs. It includes information on key com- munications developments, equipment, and people, and many photos and information are provided on the Web site. Air Force Museum (1100 Spaatz St., Wright-Patterson AFB, Fairfield, OH 45433—(937) 255–3286; http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/) is the world’s oldest and largest military aviation museum. Open seven days a week, it is easily accessible and displays some 300 aircraft. Included within the collection are many aspects of aviation communications.

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Army Communications U.S. Army Signal Corps Museum (Conrad Hall, Bldg. 29807, Fort Gordon, GA 30905—(706) 791–2818 or (706) 791–3856; www.gordon.army.mil/ocos/ Museum/) is open Tuesday through Saturday. Located in the southern part of Georgia, the museum includes exhibits about Albert J. Myer, the founder of the corps; American Civil War items such as the Beardslee Electro Mag- neto; a circa-1870 meteorological office; signaling equipment used in the West, circa 1880; Spanish-American War equipment; the Greely expedition to the Arctic; aviation; World War I “Hello Girls”; trench warfare; a World War II signal message center; pigeons; signals in space; the Cold War; the Vietnam War; and more. Army Communications and Electronics Museum (Kaplan Hall, Building 275, Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703—(732) 532–1682; www.monmouth.army .mil/C4ISR/services/museum.shtm) is open only with a prior appoint- ment. Located in the northeast corner of New Jersey, Fort Monmouth is “the center of gravity” for the development of the Army’s command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, sensors, and reconnaissance sys- tems. Much of the Army’s research and development of these high-tech sys- tems is done at Fort Monmouth and is reflected in the museum.

Navy Communications The Navy Museum (Washington Navy Yard, Building 76, 805 Kidder Breese SE, Washington, DC 20374-5060—(202) 433-4882; www.history.navy.mil/ branches/nhcorg8.htm) is open seven days a week by prior appointment due to security concerns. Its extensive Web site offers a useful preview of the substantial collections, which include electronics and communications, such as a submarine combat information center.

Others Historical Electronics Museum (1745 Nursery Rd., Linthicum, MD 21090— (410) 765–0230, www.hem-usa.org) is located just outside Baltimore- Washington International Airport. It displays breakthroughs in electronic history in the areas of communications; radar; countermeasures; and elec- tro-optical, underwater, and space electronics. This is a private collection operated with considerable help from Northrop Grumman. Open Monday through Saturday, it also offers an extensive library and archives. National Cryptologic Museum (Colony Seven Rd, Fort Meade, MD—(301) 688-5849; http://www.nsa.gov/museum/) is the official National Security Agency museum, located in a former motel building on the Baltimore- Washington Parkway, midway between the national capital and Baltimore. It is open weekdays and alternate Saturdays and offers an extensive series of galleries on the history, especially from a U.S. point of view, of cryptog- raphy and signals intelligence from the earliest times to the present.

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National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution, National Mall, Washington, DC; http://americanhistory.si.edu/) offers a huge gen- eral collection that includes exhibit galleries on U.S. military history as well as the development of communication. Sources A Guide to U.S. Naval Museums. 1993. Washington: Naval Historical Center. Allen, Jon L. 1975. Aviation and Space Museums of America. New York: Arco. Thompson, Bryce D. 2000. U.S. Military Museums, Historic Sites & Exhibits, 2nd ed. Falls Church, VA: Military Living Publications.

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A large number of conferences and equipment exhibitions, many of them held annually, provide a useful way for military, government, and industry figures to learn about the latest trends in military communications. A few of the important American examples are noted here, many of which are held in the Washington DC area in order to attract military and government decision makers. Most are commercially sponsored and com- bine speeches and workshops with exhibitions of the latest equipment and services. Many additional conferences are held in Europe (aimed at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as well as within the more important military powers of the world. Some of these include classified briefings, while others are open. Most are highly technical and range in length from part of one day to several days. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Communica- tions Society and the Armed Forces Communications Electronic Association (AFCEA) cosponsor MILCOM—the Military Communications Conference— which was first held in 1982. MILCOM has become the premier interna- tional conference for military communications, attracting high-level attendance (upward of 3,000 people) from government, military, industry, and academe from around the world. MILCOM provides industry the opportunity to promote communications technologies and services to com- manders from all branches of the armed forces, Department of Defense, the U.S. government, and the heads of multinational forces from around the globe. The Annual Convention of the Armed Forces Communications and Elec- tronic Association, as well as the more recent annual AFCEA-West, are addi- tional interface conferences between military and industrial representatives. IEEE’s many societies also hold several conferences in the course of a year, some of them relevant to military communication concerns. The Joint Battle Management Conference (JBMC) concerns total battlespace awareness through transformation of the military into a network-centric force capable of sharing time-sensitive information and using service inter- operability to win on the battlefield. Working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff

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and U.S. Joint Forces Command, the conference contractor has assembled presenters to illuminate the military and industry on the JBMC roadmap as well as all current and future system requirements. Many other meetings are more specific in their focus. The Annual Con- ference on Military Radios, first held in 2001, addresses the needs, initiatives, opportunities, and challenges in developing the next generation of military radios. The Military Data Links Conference helps to underscore the centrality of computerized data networks and their security. Numerous meetings cen- tered on space communications or security and communications include military aspects. A trade journal sponsors the annual Military SatCom Forum. A similarly focused annual meeting has been held in Europe since the late 1990s. Military Antenna Systems is another example of a very focused annual conference. Another trade journal sponsors the Military Technologies Conference, which ranges beyond communications. Think tanks are also active in this field. The Heritage Foundation, for example, spon- sored a Conference on Defense Transformation, which included discussion of communication issues. Naturally many other conferences dealing with telecommunications technologies include sessions of value to—and sometimes specifically directed toward—military users. One example is the annual Sarnoff Sym- posium, held in Princeton, New Jersey, the site of the former RCA research center named after the long-time head of the company. Cosponsored by IEEE, in recent years, these meetings (which have been held for nearly three decades) have included many sessions focused on security and surveillance techniques as well as counterterrorism. Sources Annotated conference listing (Harris Corp.): http://www.harris.com/ tradeshows.asp. IEEE Communications Society conferences: http://www.comsoc.org/confs/. Important conferences: http://mia.ece.uic.edu/~papers/WWW/conference/. Past MILCOM proceedings (1988–2005): http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/ RecentCon.jsp?punumber=3223.

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

AACS: Army Airways Communications System; later Airways and Air Communications Service ABCS: Army Battle Command System ACS: Alaska Communications System AFB: Air Force Base AFCA: Air Force Communications Agency AFCC: Air Force Communications Command AFCEA: Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association AFCS: Air Force Communications Service AM: amplitude modulation AUTODIN: Automatic Digital Network AUTOSEVOCOM: Automatic Secure Voice Communications AUTOVON: Automatic Voice Network AWACS: Airborne Warning and Control System C2: command and control C3: command, control, and communications C3I: command, control, communications, and information C4: command, control, communications, and computers CIC: combat information center CITS: Combat Information Transport System COMCAN: Commonwealth Communications Army Network (UK) COMSEC: Communications Security DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DCA: Defense Communications Agency DCS: Defense Communications System DCSA: Defence Communications Service Agency (UK)

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DISA: Defense Information Systems Agency DMS: Defense Message System DoD: Department of Defense DSN: Defense Switched Network ECM: electric cipher machine ECM/EW: electronic countermeasures/electronic warfare EHF: extremely high frequency (spectrum) EMP: electromagnetic pulse Enigma: German code machine, World War II Fax: facsimile FCC: Federal Communications Commission “Fish”: German World War II codes FM: frequency modulation Fullerphone: British voice system using telegraph lines, World War I GC&CS: Government Code and Cipher School (UK) GHz: gigahertz (spectrum) GIG: Global Information Grid GPS: Global Positioning System Heliograph: mirror device used in visual communications HF: high frequency (spectrum) HMS: Her (or His) Majesty’s Ship (Royal Navy) IEE: Institution of Electrical Engineers (UK) IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers IFF: Identification, Friend or Foe IRAC: Inderdepartment Radio Advisory Committee IRMA: Information Revolution in Military Affairs ITU: International Telecommunication Union Jamming: deliberate transmission of interference to block radio signals JASCO: Joint Assault Signal Company JTF-GNO: Joint Task Force–Global Network Operations JTIDS: Joint Tactical Information Distribution System JTRS: Joint Tactical Radio System kHz: kiloHertz (spectrum) LF: low frequency (spectrum) Magic: American effort to break Japanese codes, World War II

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MARS: Military Affiliate Radio System MHz: MegaHertz (spectrum) MOD: Ministry of Defence (UK) NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NBS: National Bureau of Standards NCS: National Communications System NDRC: National Defense Research Committee NETCOM: Network Enterprise Technology Command (U.S. Army) NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology NRL: Naval Research Laboratory or Navy Radio Laboratory NRO: National Reconnaissance Office NSA: National Security Agency NSG: Naval Security Group NTDS: Naval Tactical Data System NTIA: National Telecommunications and Information Administration OP-20-G: Navy Signals Intelligence OSS: Office of Strategic Services PCM: pulse code modulation RAF: Royal Air Force (UK) RCS: Royal Corps of Signals (UK) SAC: Strategic Air Command (U.S. Air Force) SAGE: Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Semaphore: physical telegraphy—using flags or wooden devices SIGINT: signals intelligence SINCGARS: Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System SIPRNet: Secret Internet Protocol Router Network SRDE: Signals Research and Development Establishment (UK) SSA: Signal Security Agency SSB: single sideband (radio transmission) STRATCOM: Strategic Communications Command (U.S. Army) TBS: talk between ships TRI-TAC: Tri-Service Tactical Communications Program TV: television UHF: ultra high frequency (spectrum) Ultra: British effort to break German Enigma codes, World War II

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USS: United States Ship (naval vessel) VHF: very high frequency (spectrum) VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol WAMCATS: Washington Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System WAR: War Department Radio Network; also, “We Are Ready” WDLN: Weapons Data Link Network WHCA: White House Communications Agency Wig-Wag: hand-held semaphore flags WIN-T: Warfighter Information Network–Tactical WWMCCS: World Wide Military Command and Control System

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 FURTHER READING: A BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following briefly annotated bibliography surveys the major published sources (chiefly books) providing an overview of military communications history. Entries are divided into sections on survey histories, military (army) communications, naval communications, aviation communications, and some useful Web sites. There are several important limitations to this list. It is restricted to material published in English; it generally excludes the many works dealing with specific wars, services, organizations, or people (which appear in the bibliographic references in relevant entries in the text); and it generally excludes material concerning only one nation except Britain and the United States (as they are so central to the story). Citations to material on specific nations appear with relevant entries. Because they change (and disappear) so rapidly, only a few general Web sites are listed separately. Those titles thought to be of central importance are identified as essential books. Read- ers new to this subject matter might want to begin with those.

Survey Histories Bridge, Maureen, and John Pegg, eds. 2001. Call to Arms: A History of Military Communications from the Crimean War to the Present Day. Tavistock, UK: Focus Publishing. Largely built around British post office and telecommunications con- tributions and the British services, this is a very insightful overall survey. de Arcangelis, Mario. 1985. Electronic Warfare: From the Battle of Tsushima to the Falklands and Lebanon Conflicts. Poole, UK: Blackford Press. A translation from the Italian original, this provides a useful historical survey of twentieth-century applications of “invisible war” technologies from the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) to developments in space.

Devereux, Tony. 1991. Messenger Gods of Battle: Radio, Radar, Sonar, the Story of Electronics in War. London: Brassey’s.

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Historical review of the role of electronics in military history, including the development and applications of radio, radar, sonar, and space elec- tronic warfare.

Headrick, Daniel R. 1991. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. While focused on international relations and the effects of changing cable and radio technology on the same, there is a good deal of useful mili- tary communications comment tucked away in this valuable study, especially in chapters 8 and 9 (World War I) and chapters 12 and 13 (World War II).

Holzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson. 1995. The Early History of Data Net- works. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press. Despite its rather odd title, this is a fine history of early (pre-electric) means of communications, many if not most of them military in origin or application. It focuses especially on the semaphore or mechanical telegraph systems of Chappe and Edelcrantz, and includes a translation of the latter’s 1796 treatise.

Jane’s Military Communications. 1979–Present. Coulsdon, UK: Jane’s Infor- mation Group, annual. A now-standard directory to equipment and systems for most countries of the world, it includes sections on tactical communications; ground-based and strategic communications; terrestrial microwave and tropospheric scat- ter; naval systems and equipment; air force communications; satellite sys- tems and equipment; line and transmission systems; data and text; encryption and security; surveillance and signal analysis; direction finding; jamming; facsimile; audio; and laser, optical, and video systems.

Macksey, Kenneth. 1990. For Want of a Nail: Impact of War on Logistics and Communications. London: Brassey’s. While this uses “communications” in the British sense, thus including transport, it does offer a useful assessment of the growth of military logis- tics and communications since 1850, including the importance of support- ing fighting troops with ammunition, food, equipment, and so forth. It covers the impact of railways; logistics support in World War I; the mechanization of 1916–1917; the problem of distance in global warfare; present-day solutions; and what the future holds.

O’Connell, J. D., et al. 1962. “A Summary of Military Communications in the United States—1860 to 1962.” Proceedings of the IRE 50 (May): 1241–1251. Broad survey focusing on a century of wired and wireless connec- tion—one of only a handful of such attempts.

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Price, Alfred. 1978. Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare. 2nd ed. New York: Scribners. In twelve chapters the author describes the story from World War II through the Vietnam War—much of it ranging well beyond communica- tions to cover radar, electronic countermeasures, etc.

Scheips, Paul J., ed. 1980. Military Signal Communications. Historical Studies in Telecommunications, 2 vols. New York: Arno Press. Invaluable anthology that covers the history of American and British army use of the telegraph, telephone, and other means of electrical commu- nications. Volume 1 includes twenty-seven papers, many covering the Civil War and telegraph eras. Volume 2 includes another twenty-nine cov- ering signaling techniques with semaphore, telegraph, telephone, and radio service. An essential book.

Sexton, Daniel J. 1996. Signals Intelligence in World War II: A Research Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood. This is a very useful annotated bibliography of SIGINT (including code breaking) in the European and Pacific theaters, with more than 800 citations. As this topic is only briefly included in the present volume, Sexton’s refer- ence is especially useful.

Woods, David L. 1965. A History of Tactical Communication Techniques. Orlando, FL: Martin-Marietta Corp. (reprinted by Arno Press “History of Telecommunications,” 1974). A pioneering effort, this remains the only survey history of tactical- level military communications ranging across the years from ancient uses of messengers and signal flags up to various electrical means. While not documented, this remains an essential book.

Military (Army) Communications Adams, M. R. 1970. Through to 1970: Royal Signal Corps Golden Jubilee. Lon- don: Royal Signals Institution. A handsomely illustrated album surveying stories of British army sig- nals and the technologies applied. See also Nalder.

Army Times, editors of. 1961. A History of the United States Signal Corps. New York: Putnam. Popular history in twelve chapters from the Civil War to pioneering satellite operations. See also Marshall.

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Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. History of Telegraphy, “Military Operations [with the Telegraph],” chap. 4; and “[Wireless] at War,” chap. 8, 102–133 and 266–307. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. Wired telegraph and wireless in several countries’ armies from the late nineteenth century to after World War II, including wireless, direction finding, and training functions.

Burton, Laurette. 2002. The Royal Corps of Signals. Stroud, UK: Tempus Publishing. A brief survey that contains more than 200 graphic images of the corps on training, ceremonial, civic, and base duties as well as in action in many theaters from the Western Front of World War I, the Western desert, Far East, and Europe in World War II to Borneo and Northern Ireland in more recent times.

Harfield, Alan, ed. 1989. Pigeon to Packhorse: The Illustrated Story of Animals in Army Communications. Chippenham, UK: Picton. Traces the history of animals in communications from the change brought about by the invention and then use of the electric telegraph dur- ing the Crimean War, 1854. Chapters on the telegraph troop, animal trans- port used in Indian signals, the cable wagon and cart, camels, messenger dogs, horses, the advent of wireless, and the Pigeon Service.

Lord, Cliff, and Graham Watson. 2003. The Royal Corps of Signals: Unit His- tories of the Corps (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Solihull, UK: Helion & Co. Beginning with the formation of the corps, this provides overviews of the Signals Order of Battle at specific times in history; detailed precis of spe- cialist signal units including commando and para units. Provides the his- tory of thirty-five commonwealth and related corps with scores of unit histories from the 1920s to the present. An essential book.

Lord, Cliff. 2007. Royal Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and its Antecedents: Supplementary Volume Solihull, UK: Helion. Adds more detailed information on Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rhodesia, Singapore, and South Africa. The emphasis is on the six decades since the Second World War. An essential book.

Mallinson, Howard. 2005. Send It By Semaphore: The Old Telegraphs During the Wars with France. Ramsbury, UK: Crowood Press. Developments in France and Britain of mechanical semaphore sys- tems, immediate predecessor of the electric telegraph.

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Marshall, Max L., ed. 1965. The Story of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. New York: Franklin Watts “The Watts Landpower Library.” An anthology by multiple authors, this is divided into two parts—half historical material and half dealing with the corps at the time of publication. See also Army Times.

Nalder, R. F. H. 1958. The Royal Corps of Signals: A History of Its Antecedents and Development (circa 1800–1955). London: Royal Signals Institution. This is by far the most detailed history of any country’s signaling technology. Nalder’s book is of the depth and quality of the official histories published in the United Kingdom. An essential book—for more recent period, see Lord and Warner.

Radio News, editors of. 1942. Special U.S. Army Signal Corps Issue, 28 (5). Offers a good overview of signal corps history in several articles, plus a solid sense of the state of equipment, operations, and training in the first year (for the United States) of the war. The thirty articles are supplemented with numerous illustrations, including some in color.

Radio News, editors of. 1944. Special U.S. Army Signal Corps Issue, 31 (2). Includes forty well-illustrated articles (with color photography) on American and overseas operations and equipment (including illustrations of German and Japanese captured radios).

Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting The Message Through: A Branch His- tory of The US Army Signal Corps. Army Historical Series. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. First comprehensive history of the corps, including trends in technol- ogy of instruments used. An essential book.

Scriven, George P. 1908. The Transmission of Military Information. Governors Island, NY: Journal of the Military Service Institution. Articles reprinted from the journal on the signal corps and the mobile army and wireless, electrical and visual communication, and relation of sig- nal corps to the coast artillery. Useful for contemporary view as wireless was becoming more widely used.

“Signal Corps Centennial Issue.” 1960. Transactions of the Institute of Radio Engineers MIL-4 (October): 396—607. Thirty-five papers on high-frequency communications, radar, and other developments in military electronics, including historical surveys. Photos, references.

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The Signal Corps. 1956–1966. U.S. Army in World War II: The Technical Services. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. This three-volume series offers a well-documented and detailed assess- ment of both technology development and applications, as well as Signal Corps operations during the war. An essential trilogy, as follows: 1. Terrett, Dulany. 1956. The Emergency deals with the period up to the Pearl Harbor attack. 2. Thompson, George Raynor, et al. 1957: The Test covers the initial American role in the war, December 1941 to July 1943. 3. Thompson, George Raynor, and Dixie R. Harris. 1966. The Outcome completes the story, covering from mid-1943 through 1945.

U.S. War Department, Office of the Chief Signal Officer. 1917. Manual No. 3: Technical Equipment of the Signal Corps. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. One of the best (and best illustrated) guides to the telegraph, tele- phone, cable, aerial line, and related equipment used at the time.

Warner, Philip. 1989. The Vital Link: The Story of Royal Signals 1945–1985. London: Leo Cooper. A survey of post–World War II developments, demonstrating the expansion of technological options; Signals roles included maintaining bat- tlefield communications, electronic intelligence, and electronic warfare. The book concentrates on the history of the corps using personal anecdotes. An essential book—for earlier material, see Lord and Nalder.

Wilson, Geoffrey. 1976. The Old Telegraphs. London: Phillimore. Definitive source for pre-electric semaphores, a large proportion of which were built and operated by military services.

Woolliscroft, D. I. 2001. Roman Military Signalling. Charleston, SC: Tempus Publishing. First book on the subject, focusing on activities in Britain and Germany, and offering original research findings.

Naval Communications Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. “Military Telegraphy at Sea.” In History of Telegra- phy, chap. 9, 308–347. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. Radio in several countries’ navies from the turn of the twentieth cen- tury to after World War II, including shore stations, cable ships and cables, and training.

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Boslaugh, David L. 1999. When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the United States Navy. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society. The four-decade development of the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) is related, from radar to code breaking to weapons directing to the development of tactical shipboard computers from the 1950s into the 1990s.

Gebhard, Louis A. 1979. Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Laboratory. Naval Research Laboratory Report 8300. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. An important study of the development of improving wireless technol- ogy. Includes discussion of radar and electronic countermeasures as well as radio communication. See also Taylor.

Hezlet, Arthur. 1975. Electronics and Sea Power. New York: Stein & Day. The role of wireless and other electronics (including radar and code breaking) in naval warfare from the late nineteenth century into the 1960s.

Howeth, L[inwood] S., 1963. History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Numerous appendices, photos, notes, bibliography, index. Well-doc- umented history focusing on wireless and radio applications. The forty-two chapters appear in sections on the decade of development (to World War I), the golden age (1914 to the early 1920s), and the age of electronics (through World War II). Very important study that despite its age has not yet been superseded. An essential book.

Kent, Barrie. 1993. Signal! A History of Signalling in the Royal Navy. Clanfield, UK: Hyden House. From signal flags to wireless and on to modern methods—this is the definitive history to date. The first part (seventeen chapters) relates the his- tory chronologically while the second (six chapters) provides an anthology of selections from documents and earlier narratives. An essential book.

Palmer, Michael A. 2005. Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wide-ranging study, focusing on the days of sail, making clear the impact signaling systems had on naval command and control functions.

Taylor, A. Hoyt. 1949. Radio Reminiscences: A Half Century. Washington, DC: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (republished 1960). The author’s experiences from the turn of the century to World War II, with a host of details on people and technical developments. See also Gebhard.

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Woods, David L., ed. 1980. Signaling and Communicating at Sea 2 Vols. His- torical Studies in Telecommunications. New York: Arno Press. Extensive anthology of contemporary papers and documents—an invaluable collection. Volume 1 includes thirty-one items, most devoted to visual signaling. Volume 2 continues with twenty-seven more that are largely devoted to wireless, including research. An essential set of books.

Aviation Communications Beauchamp, Ken. 2001. “Military Telegraphy in the Air.” In History of Teleg- raphy, chap. 10 , 348–388. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers. Photos, diagrams. Radio in several countries’ air forces from the turn of the twentieth century to after World War II.

Morrison, Larry R. 1997. From Flares to Satellites: A Brief History of Air Force Communications. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Communications Com- mand Office of History. One of many publications issued for the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Air Force, this offers a good brief survey with photos and annotations.

Snyder, Thomas S., gen. ed. 1981. The Air Force Communications Command: Providing the Reins of Command 1938–1981 [1991]. 3rd ed. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Air Force Communications Command Office of History. Well-illustrated history of the organization and technology of aircraft communications in the U.S. Army (to 1947) and Air Force. An essential book.

Selected Web Sites This very brief listing excludes museum Web sites (which are listed under Military Communications Museums). All sites listed were valid as of the fall of 2005. (Many more useful sites are noted after individual entries within the text.)

Military communication links http://militaryradio.com/links.html

Branch History of Canadian Defence Communications/Electronics http://www.img.forces.gc.ca/commelec/Brhistory/hisSpla_e.htm (zip file)

Radio Systems Aboard HMCS Haida (by Jerry Proc, with extensive detailed chapters on Canada) http://webhome.idirect.com/~jproc/rrp/toc.html

Rongstad’s Worldwide Links to Military Communications-Electronics http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/military/c4i/commelex.htm

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Royal Naval Communications Association http://www.rnca.info/frameindex.htm

U.S. Air Force Communications Agency History (includes an extensive survey history) http://public.afca.af.mil/history_pages/flares1.htm

U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command http://www.monmouth.army.mil/cecom/

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1st Air Force Combat Camera Squadron (United drone aircraft, 12 States), 352 post–World War II, 11–12 4th Wireless Group (United Kingdom), 195 pre–World War I, 10 10th Cavalry (“Buffalo Soldiers” [United World War I, 10–11 States]), 164 World War II, 11 11th Air Assault Division (United States), 9 Airships and balloons, xxvii, 13–15 55th Army Signal Corps (United States), 352 British, 14 92nd Infantry Division (United States), 164 German Zeppelins, 13–14 93rd Infantry Division (United States), 164 U.S., 13, 14 (photo), 15 use of during the American Civil War, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 273–274 237–238 Airways and Air Communications Service Air Force Command, Control, Communications (AACS), 3–4 and Computer Agency (AFC4A), 1 Alaska Communications System (ACS), 4, 15–17 Air Force Communications Agency (AFCA), 1–3 Alascom, 16 and command, control, communications, Washington Alaska Military Cable and Tele- computer, intelligence, surveillance, and graph System (WAMCATS), 15–16, 37 reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities, 2 White Alaska Integrated Communications Field Operating Agency (FOA) of, 1–2 and Electronics (WHITE ALICE), 16, 59, 458 Air Force Communications Command Aldis lamp, 17–18, 17 (photo) (AFCC), 1 Alexander, Edward Porter, 18–19, 20, 68, 102 Air Force Communications Service (AFCS), Air Allied Submarine Detection Investigating Force Communications Command (AFCC), Committee (ASDIC), 43 3–6 Alternate Joint Communications Center (AJCC), Air Force Frequency Management Center, 1 413–415 Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Cen- American Civil War (1861–1985), xxvii, 19–21, ter, 1 36, 55–57, 142, 271–272, 395, 401, 429–430 Air Force Research Laboratory, 6–7 construction of military roads during, 296 Airborne Communications Control establishment of the U.S. Military Telegraph AN/ASC-5, 9 Service (USMTS), 20 Airborne Warning and Control System photography during, 352 (AWACS), xxxvii, 203, 7–8 postal services during, 361 Airmobile communications, 8–10 railway networks of, 492–493 Airplanes, 10–13 use of balloons during, 273–274 and the Airborne Command Post (“Looking use of the telegraph during, 441–442 Glass”), 12 use of the “wig-wag” communications sys- British, 11 tem during, 18, 19–20, 160, 214 Cold War applications of, 12 See also Bull Run, Battle of; Coston signals

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American Institute of Electrical Engineers Banker, Grace, 54–55, 55 (photo) (AIEE), 230–231 Baran, Paul, 109 American Telephone & Telegraph Company Bardeen, John, 455 (AT&T), xxviii, xxxi, 21–23, 58, 59, 448, 449 Beardslee telegraph, 55–57, 56 (photo) and the “Bell Battalions,” 21 Beauregard, P. G. T., 18, 68, 102 forced breakup of, 23 Bell, Alexander Graham, xxvii–xxviii, 57–58, 58 role of in Korean War communications, 22 (photo), 148, 230, 444 role of in World War I communications, 21–22 Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL), xxxv, 58–60, role of in World War II communications, 22 145, 455 Western Electric subsidiary of, 21–23 Berners-Lee, Tim, 239 American Teletype Corporation, 448 Bigbie, E. E., 209 American wars (to 1860), 23–24 Black, Hanson B., 505 American Revolution (1776–1781), 23 Blair, William Richards, 61–62 Mexican War (1846–1848), 24 Blake, Gordon, 33 War of 1812 (1812–1814), 24 Blandford Camp, 62–63 Ancient signals/signaling, 24–26 Bletchley Park, 63–65, 405, 520 of Aneas the Tactician, 25 See also German “Fish” codes; Government of Cleoxones and Democritus, 25 Code and Cipher School (GC&CS [Great fire signals, 25 Britain]), Ultra; Welchman, Gordon Antheil, George, 267 Blue Ridge, 27 Appalachian (AGC-1), 26–27 Boer War (1899–1902), xxvii, xxix, 444, 493 Ardois light system, 27–28 Boer War wireless, 65–66 Arlington Hall, 28–30, 29 (photo), 86, 117, 402, signaling during, 160, 308 520 Bolero Project, 33 Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Bolton, John, 209 Association (AFCEA), 30–31 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 511–512 Armstrong, Edwin Howard, xxxii, 31–32, 32 Boyd, John, 434, 507 (photo), 37, 111, 369, 372, 490, 503, 519 Brady, Mathew, 352 Army Airways Communications System, Air- Brattain, Walter, 455 ways and Air Communications Service Britain, Battle of, xxxii, 66–68, 67 (photo), 138, (AACS), 32–34 372, 446 Army Amateur Radio System (AARS), 292–293 British School of Military Engineering, 143 Artillery/gunfire, 40–41 Brodie, Alexander, 336 Association of Old Crows (AOC), xxxviii, 41–42 Bull Run, Battle of, 68–69, 102 Atlantic, Battle of, 42–44 Bush, George W., 2 Atlantic Wall, xxxii, 44–45, 45 (photo) Bush, Vannevar, 69–70, 98, 316 Automated Weather Distribution System, 5 Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN), 4, Cable and Wireless Limited, 439–440 47–48, 119, 120, 121, 354 Camp Crowder (Missouri), 71–72 Automatic Secure Voice Communications Canada, 72–75, 74 (photo) (AUTOSEVOCOM), 48–49 air force signaling, 74 Automatic Voice Network (AUTOVON), 4, 5, army signaling, 73–74 122 merger of all armed forces signal organiza- tions, 75 Babbage, Charles, 98 National Defence Communications System, Bain, Alexander, 51–52, 145 74 Baird, John Logie, 450 navy signaling, 74–75 Baltic nations, 52–54 origins of signaling in, 72–73 Estonia, 52 Canadian Forces Reorganization Act (1968), 75 Latvia, 52–54 Canadian Forces Supplementary Radio System Lithuania, 54 (SRS), 76

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Canine, Ralph, 381–382 Communication satellites, 92–96 Carruthers, Bruce, 73 growing use of, 94 Carty, John J., 37 origins of, 93 Caselli, Giovanni, 51, 145 U.S. military satellites, 94–96 Cassity, James, 392 Communications, military, xxiii–xxiv Caulfield, William, 295 between World Wars I and II, xxxii Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 316–317, 341, during the digital era, xxxvii–xxxviii 404 during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, xxxiv– Underground Facility Analysis Center of, xxxvii 466–467 during World War I, xxix–xxxi Central Security Service (CSS), 319 during World War II, xxxii–xxxiv Chappe, Claude, xxv, 76–77, 131, 383, 397 pre-electric era, xxiv–xxvi Chappe semaphore system, xxvi, 311, 312, 397– telephone and telegraph era, xxvi–xviii 398 trends underlying development of, xxxviii–xl Chatau, Pierre-Jacques, 383 wireless era, xxviii–xxix Cheney, Dick, 414 Communications intelligence (COMINT), 404 Cher Ami, and the “Lost Battalion,” 31, 77–78 Communications Security (COMSEC), 96–98 Chicksands, 78–79 Communications Security Establishment (CSE China (People’s Republic of China), 79–82 [Canada]), 75–76 development of computer viruses by, 81 Computers, 98–101 military communications network in, 80 advances in mainframe computers, 99–100 modernization of communications in, 80–81 and computer security (COMPUSEC), 100, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 101–102 80, 81 development of Colossus, 98–99, 405 signal corps development in, 80 electronic numerical integrator and computer Churchill, Winston, 42, 64, 463, 478, 520 (ENIAC), 99 Ciezki, Maksymilian, 357, 358, 359 and Secret Internet Protocol Router Network Clark, Mark, 464 (SIPRNet), 100, 102 Coast defense (United States), 82–84 Confederate Air Force, 19 and fire control (FC) communication, 82, 83 Confederate Army Signal Corps, xxvii, 18, 19, importance of radio to, 84 102–103 and the “telautograph,” 83 Congreve, William, 401 and the use of telephone communications, 82 Cooke, William F., 51, 440 Code breaking, xxxiii, xxxix, 86–87, 182, 253, Coston, Benjamin Franklin, 103 520–521. See also Arlington Hall; Bletchley Coston, Martha J., 104 Park; Code talkers; Polish code breaking Coston signals, 103–104 Code/codebooks, 84–86, 261 Couriers, 105–106 Code talkers, 87–89, 88 (photo), 406 Cuban Missile Crisis, 106–108, 107 (photo), 221, Colomb, P. H., 157, 209 320, 450 Color, 89–90 Custer, George A., 148 Colton, Roger, 503 Combat information center (CIC), 90–91, 90 Daniels, Josephus, 156 (photo) DARPANET, xxxvi, 6, 109–110 primary purpose of, 91 da Silva Rondon, Candido Mariano, 260 Combat Information Transport System (CITS), de Bigot, Sebastian Francisco, 173, 223 91–92 Deception, 111–113 Combat Logistics Network (COMLOGNET), 47 and the “double-cross” system, 112–113 Combined Communications-Electronics Board during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, 113 (CCEB), 294–295 during the Six Day War, 138 Commonwealth Communications Army Net- Operation Fortitude, 112 work (COMCAN [Great Britain]), 92 Operation Mincemeat, 112

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 556 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Index

Defence Communication Service Agency Einstein, Albert, 269 (DCSA [Great Britain]), 113–114 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 463–464 Defence Fixed Telecommunications System Electric cipher machine (ECM Mark II, (DFTS [Great Britain]), 114–115 “SIGABA”), 134–136, 135 (photo) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Electromagnetic pulse (EMP), 136–137, (DARPA), 109, 110, 115–116 138–139 major concerns of, 116 Electronic countermeasures/electronic warfare Defense Communications Agency (DCA), 117, (ECM/EW), 41–42, 137–139 119–120 in China, 81 Defense Communications Board/Board of War Electronic numerical integrator and computer Communications, 117–118 (ENIAC), 99 Defense Communications System (DCS), 118– Electronics intelligence (ELINT), 138, 404 119 E-mail systems, 139–140 Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Enigma cipher machine, xxxii, 140–142, 141 119–120 (photo) Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 404 European wars, late nineteenth-century, Defense Message System (DMS), 119, 120–121, 142–143 139 Crimean War (1854–1856), xxvi, 142, 219, 352, Defense Switched Network (DSN), 118–119, 383, 467 121–122 Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), 142, 442 Defiance, 122–123 Everest, George, 209 de Forest, Lee, 110–111, 111 (photo), 369, 437, Ewing, Alfred, 380 490 de la Bourdonnais, Bertrand-François Mahé, Fabyan, George, 126 173, 223 Facsimile/Fax, 145–146 de Reynold-Chauvancy, Charles, 223 Falklands conflict (1982), 146–147, 373 Dewey, George, 378, 419, 485 Fateful Day (25 June 1876), 147–148 Diego Garcia, 123–124 Fenton, Roger, 352 Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, 22 Ferrié, Gustave-Auguste, 148–149 Dogs, 124–126, 125 (photo) Fessenden, Reginald A., 149–151, 150 (photo), Dogs for Defense, Inc., 125 370 hearing of, 126 Fiber optics, 151–152 value of, 126 military advantages of, 152 Dom Pedro, 147 Field, Cyrus, xxvii, 152–153 Donovan, William (“Wild Bill”), 341, 342 Field wire and cable, 153–154 Driscoll, Agnes Meyer, 126–127, 389 disadvantages of, 154 military use of, 153–154 Eardley-Wilmot, A. P., 223 types of, 153 Eastern Europe, 129–130 Fire/flame/torch signaling, 154–155 Czechoslovakia, 129 Greek and Roman use of, 154–155 Poland, 129–130 Native American use of, 155 Romania, 130 Fiske, Bradley A., 155–156, 399 Eberle, E. B., 356 Flaghoist signaling, 156–158 Edelcrantz, Abraham, xxvi, 130–131 basic flag designs, 156–157 Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, xxv colors of, 157 Edison, Thomas A., 131–132, 230, 326, 490 disadvantages of, 157–158 Egypt, 132–134 Flags, 158–161 Egyptian Air Defense Force (ADF), 133 army flag telegraphy, 159–160 information infrastructure of, 133 colors of, 159 military strength of, 132–133 European use of, 160 wars of with Israel, 133 military signaling with, 159

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 557 Index

two basic systems of (one-flag and two-flag), post–World War II to the present, 190 159 and submarines, 190 Flagship, 161 Germany, naval intelligence, 187–189 Fleming, John Ambrose, 161–162, 490 Naval Communications Intelligence Division Flowers, T. H., 180 (B-Dienst), 188 Foreign instrumentation signals intelligence Gigot, Felix, 355 (FISINT), 404 Global Command and Control System (GCCS), FORTEZZA cards, 97, 102, 239 190–192, 241 Fort Gordon (Georgia), 163–164 Global Information Grid (GIG), xxxviii, Fort Huachuca (Arizona), 164–165 192–193 Fort Meade (Maryland), 165–166, 319 and the GIG Bandwidth Extension (GIG-BE), Fort Monmouth (New Jersey), 166–167 192 Fort Myer (Virginia), 167–168 Global positioning system (GPS), xxxviii, France, 130, 442, 511–512 193–195, 194(photo), 202, 240, 290 France, air force communications of, 168–169 Golden Arrow sections, 195–196 France, army communications of, 169–172 Goldmark, Peter, 450 army communications units, 171–172 Gordon, John B., 163 battle management system of, 171 Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS Commission for Military Telegraphy, 170 [Great Britain]), xxxiii, 63, 64, 196–197, and information technology, 171 402–403, 405, 452, 453, 525, 526 use of electric telegraph for, 170 Graf Zeppelin (LZ-130), 14 use of semaphore telegraph stations, 170 Grant, Ulysses S., 271 France, naval communications of, 172–174 Great Britain. See United Kingdom during the Cold War, 173–174 Great Wall (China), 197–198 during World War II, 173 Greece, military communications of, tactical communications systems of, 173 198–199 use of numerical flag code by, 173 during World War I, 198 Franklin, Benjamin, 13 during World War II, 198–199 Friedman, William F., xxxii, 86, 134, 174–176 Hellenic Signal Corps, 198 Fuller, Algernon Clement, 176, 177 Greely, Adolphus W., 199–200, 285, 515 Fullerphone, 176–177, 176 (photo) Grouchy, Emmanuel, 512 Future Combat Systems (FCS), 177–178 Ground radio, 200–201 Gulf War (1990–1991), xxxviii, 10, 124, 133, Gauss, Karl, 209 201–205, 240, 241, 373, 456, 458 Genghis Khan, xxv, 307, 355 coalition communications system of, 203 Gerke, Friedrich Clemens, 305 and the destruction of Iraq’s communication German “Fish” codes, xxxii, 179–181 system, 204 German Radio Monitoring Service, 187 as a “hyperwar,” 202 Germany, air force communications of, 181–182 and the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Germany, army communications of, 182–186, Radar System (JSTARS), 202 442 Operation Desert Storm Network (ODSNET), during World War I, 183–184 203–204 during World War II, 184–185 two phases of, 202–203 line communications of, 183 use of satellite communication during, 202 post–World War II to the present, 185–186 Germany, military communications school, Hadrian’s Wall (Great Britain), 207–208, 186–187 208 (photo) Germany, naval communications of, 189–190 Hale, George Ellery, 318 during World War I, 189 Hall, Reginald, 380 Naval Communications Research Establish- Hammer ACE, 1, 5 ment, 189 Hebern, Edward, 126

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 558 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Index

Heliograph and mirrors, 208–211, 210 (photo) U.S. intelligence ships, 234 decline in use of, 211 Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Committee and Morse Code, 209 (IRAC), 321–322, 423–424, 425 range of the heliograph, 210–211 International Code of Signals (ICS), 234–236 sources of light for, 208–209 International Frequency Registration Board and the U.S. campaign against Native (IFRB), 237 Americans, 210 International Maritime Consultative use of during colonial wars, 209 Organization (IMCO), 236 “Hello Girls,” 211–213, 212 (photo) International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Heraldry/insignia, 213–215, 214 (table) 146, 236–237 ancient use of, 213–214 Internet, 237–240 and the Signal Corps device, 214 and ARPANET, 238, 239 use of in sporting events, 215 development of the World Wide Web Hicks, Janet E. A., 39 (WWW), 239 High-frequency direction finding (HF DF), and the Domain Name System, 238 215–217 and TELENET, 238–239 High-speed Morse code, 217–218 and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Hindenburg (LZ-129), 14 Projects Agency (ARPA), 237–238 Ho Chi Minh, 494 See also Secret Internet Protocol Router Net- Hooper, Stanford C., 218–219 work (SIPRNet) Horses/mules, 219–221, 220 (photo) Iraq War (2003–present), xxxviii, 10, 240–244, during the Afghan War (1878–1880), 219 249, 373 during the Crimean War (1854–1856), 219 and the Army Battle Command System during World War I, 219–220 (ABCS), 241 Hotline/Direct Communications Link (DCL), and the Blue Force Tracking (BFT) system, 221–222 241 Howe, Richard, xxv, 159, 222–223, 477 changing communication technology used in, Human intelligence (HUMINT), 404 240–243 Human signaling, 223–224 lessons of, 243 and the TeleEngineering Kit (TEK), 242 Identification, friend or foe (IFF), 225–226, 471 Israel, 81, 133, 244–245 Imaging intelligence (IMINT), 404 and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 244 India, 226–228 and the Mountain Rose system, 245 commercial telegraph line in (1857), 226 and the Six Day War (1967), 138, 234 Indian Signal Service, 226–227 Iyappa, A. C., 227 and technology, 227 and tensions with Pakistan, 227 Jackson, Andrew, 24 Information Revolution in Human Affairs Jackson, Henry B., xxviii–xxix, 123, 143, (IRMA), 228–229, 433–434 247–248, 477 Information warfare (IW), 228 Jamming, 248–250 Infrared signal systems, 229–230 during the Iraq War, 249 the NANCY HANKS system, 230 during World War I, 248 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers during World War II, 248–249 (IEEE), 230–232 Japan, 81 Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), 231 Japan, air force communications of, 250–251 Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), during World War II, 250 232–233 lack of communication between army and Integrated circuit (IC), 296, 416 naval air forces, 250–251 Intelligence ships, 233–234, 233 (photo) Japan, army communications of, 251–254 and AGER vessels, 234 during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), and SWATH vessels, 233–234 252–253

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 559 Index

during the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Longstreet, James, 19 252 Lowe, Thaddeus, xxvii, 273–274, 273 (photo) during World War I, 253 during World War II, 253 Magic, 275–277 in the feudal period, 252 Maginot Line, xxxii, 277–278, 277 (illustration) modernization of, 251–252 Mance, Henry C., 209 Japan, naval communications of, 254–255 Mandl, Fritz, 257 during World War I, 254 Maori signaling, 278–279 during World War II, 254–255 Marconi, Guglielmo, xxix, 65, 162, 247, 279–281, See also Midway, Battle of 280 (photo), 369, 477 Jenks, Robert W., 223 Marion, Francis, 356 Johnson, Frances, 352 Marne, Battle of, 281–282, 371–372, 517 Johnson, Joseph, 68 Marryat, Frederick, 158, 234–235 Johnson, Lyndon B., 495 six-part signal code system of, 235 Johnston, Philip, 87–88 Mauborgne, Joseph Oswald, 282–284 Joint Assault Signal Company (JASCO), 255–256 Mauldin, Bill, 41 Joint Tactical Information Distribution System Maxwell, James Clerk, 162 (JTIDS), 256–258 McClellan, George, 429 Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), 258–259 McDonald, John, 223 Joint Task Force–Global Network Operations McDowell, Irvin, 68, 69 (JTF-GNO), 259–260 McPeak, Merill, 202 “Jungle Telegraph,” 260–261 Meade, George G., 165 Jutland, Battle of, 261–262, 396 Measurement and signatures intelligence (MASINT), 404 Kempenfelt, Richard, 223 Medal of Honor winners, U.S. Signal Corps, Kennedy, John F., 106–107, 430, 494 284–286 Khrushchev, Nikita, 107 Barnes, Will Croft, 284 Kilby, Jack St. Clair, 263–264, 416 Greely, Adolphus W., 285 Kimmel, Husband E., 348 Johnston, Gordon, 285 Kleinrock, Leonard, 238 Kilbourne, Charles E., 285 Konvalinka, J. V., 223 Lane, Morgan D., 284 Korean War (1950–1953), xxxiv, 22, 264–266, 373, Medieval military signaling, 286–287 375, 480 Mercury, 287–288 communications problems during, 265 Meteor burst communications (MBC), 288–289 Eighth Army (U.S.) operations in, 264–265 Meucci, Antonio, 200 and the Mukden Cable system, 264 Mexican Punitive Expedition (1916–1917), and Operation Roll-Up, 264–265 289–290, 299 propaganda used during, 365 Microwave, 2901–291 Korn, Arthur, 145 high-powered microwave (HPM) bombs, 291 Midway, Battle of, 291–292 Lamarr, Hedy, 267–268 Miles, Nelson A., 164, 355–356 Langer, Gwido, 358, 359 Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS), Language translation, 268–269 292–294 Langley, Samuel P., 199–200 Military Communications-Electronic Board, Lasers, 269–270 294–295 Lee, Robert E., 19 Military Message Handling System (MMHS), Lenin, Vladimir, 384 139 Lights and beacons, 270–271 Military roads, 295–296 Lincoln, Abraham, xxvii British, 295 use of the telegraph by, 271–272, 272 (photo) Roman, 295 Long, John D., 419, 420 U.S., 296

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 560 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Index

Milligan, James E., 103 Nassar, Gamel Abdel, 432–433 Millikan, Robert A., 318 National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 313–314 Miniaturization, 296–297 National Communications System (NCS), Missile range communications, 297–298 314–315 Mitchell, Billy, 15–16 National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), Mobile communications, 298–302 315–316 during the Gulf War, 301 National Electric Signal Company (NESCO), during World War I, 299 150 during World War II, 299–300 National Institute of Standards and Technology early attempts at, 299 (NIST), 313–314 modern, 300–301 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), 316–318 and radio, 299, 300 National Research Council (NRC), 318–319 Mobile wireless assembly (MWA), 440 National Security Agency (NSA), xxxvii, 87, Modulation, 302–303 319–321 amplitude modulation (AM), 302 and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 320 frequency modulation (FM), xxix, 302 effect of new technology on activities of, phase modulation (PM), 302–303 320–321 and software-defined radio (SDR), 303 and the Oxford SIGINT collection vessel, 320 very high frequency (VHF), 302, 372, 373, 479 and SIGINT, 319, 320 Moore, Gordon, 416–417 and the UKUSA network, 320, 403 Morse, Samuel F. B., xxvi, 200, 303, 305–306, National Telecommunications and Information 440–441 Administration (NTIA), 321–322, 424, 425 Morse Code, 27, 303–305, 304 (photo) Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Commit- International Morse Code, 305 tee (IRAC) of, 321–322, 423–424 Mount Whitney, 27 Native American signaling, 322–323. See also Multilingual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Code talkers Translator (MASTOR), 268–269 Naval radio stations, 323–326, 324 (photo) Murray, Donald, 448 and the Arlington radio station NAA, Murray, George, 398 324–325 Music signals, 306–308 stations outside of the United States, 325 during the Boer War, 308 technical equipment used in, 324–325 Greek and Roman, 307 Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), 326–328, use of the drum in, 307 437–438 use of gongs in, 308 bureaucratic changes in, 327 use of in navies, 308 space research of, 327 use of the trumpet in, 307–308 Navigation Satellite Timing and Ranging Myer, Albert J., xxvii, 18, 20–21, 35–36, 68–69, (NAVSTAR), 193–194, 202 102, 167, 223, 304, 306, 308–310 Nebraska Avenue (Washington, DC), 333–334 activities during the American Civil War, 309 Nelson, Horatio, xxv, 454 development of the “wig-wag” communica- Network Enterprise Technology Command tions system, 19–20, 159–160, 214 (NETCOM), 334–336 See also Fort Myer (Virginia) Newman, Max, 180 New Zealand. See Royal New Zealand Corps of Nalder, R., 516 Signals Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815), xxv–xxvi, Ney, Michel, 512 311–313 Night signals, 337–338 Peninsular Campaign of, 312 Noble, Daniel E., 503 use of the Chappe semaphore system during, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 311–312 174, 385, 458, 475, 479, 511 use of signal flag relay system during, 312 Communications & Information Systems See also Waterloo, Battle of Agency (NCSA) of, 338–339

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS 561 Index

Northampton (CA-125), 26–27 during the Korean War, 365 Norris, William, 102–103 during the Vietnam War, 365–366 Noyce, Robert, xxxv, 263–264, 416 during World War I, 364 during World War II, 364–365, 521 Office of Scientific Research and Development psychological operations (PSYOPS), 363 (OSRD), 316 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 341–342 Quartz crystals, and radio control, 367–368 Ohio, 342–343 The Old Telegraph (G. Wilson), 399 Radar, xxxii, 373 OP-20-G, 343–345, 487 German “crooked leg” system, 67 O’Reilly, Henry, 429 ground control approach (GCA) radar units, Osman, A. H., 356 60 Oxford, 106 Radio, 369–374, 371 (photo), 493–494 origins of, 369–370 Palluth, Antoni, 357 post–World War II usage, 373–374 Pasley, Charles, 398 radio silence, 374–375, 521 Patton, George S., 112, 464 use of during the Korean War, xxxiv Pearl Harbor, attack on, 347–348, 375 use of during World War I, 370–372, 517, Pershing, John J., 164, 211, 289 518 Pheidippides, 105 use of during World War II, 372–373, Philippines, 348–350 519–520 origins and operations of the Philippine and the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum, Signal Corps, 348–349 9, 11, 39, 372, 373 Philipps, H. Cranmer, 223 See also Ground radio; Modulation; Quartz Phonetic alphabet, 350–352, 351 (table) crystals, and radio control Photography (military photography), 352–354, Radio Corporation of America (RCA), 16, 150 353 (photo) Reber, Samuel, 375–376 combat camera (COMCAM) units of all Rejewski, Marian, 357, 359 service branches, 352–353 Renaissance and early modern military signals, Joint Combat Camera Center (JCCC) of, 353 376–378 Phu Lam (Vietnam), 354–355 innovations during, 377 Pierce, John, 455 signal fires, 376–377 Pigeons, use of in military signaling, xxvii, Richardson, E. H., 124, 125 xxxiv, 355–357, 356 (photo) Robison, Samuel Shelburne, 378–379 in ancient times, 355 Rochefort, Joseph J., 126, 292, 389–390 in World War I, 356 Rogers, James Harris, 201, 379–380 Polish code breaking, 357–360 Rojdestvensky, Z. P., 459 key personnel of, 359–360 Rome Air Development Center (RADC), 6 Project GALE, 357–358 Ronalds, Francis, 312 Popham, Home Riggs, xxv, 159, 360–361, Room 40, 261, 380–381 398–399, 477 Roosevelt, Franklin, 17, 520 Postal services, 361–363 Roosevelt, Theodore, 260, 515 British, 361, 362 Rowlett, Frank B., xxxii, 134, 381–382, 389, 520 during the American Civil War, 361 Royal Australian Corps of Signals, 45–46 during World War I, 362 Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, 336–337 during World War II, 362 during World War I, 336–337 U.S., 362 during World War II, 337 Powell, Colin, 228 R?zycki, Jerzy, 357, 359 Preece, W. H., 444 Rumsfeld, Donald, 113 Propaganda/psychological warfare, xxxi, xxxiv, Russia/Soviet Union, air force communications 363–366, 366 (photo) of, 382–383

www.abc-clio.com ABC-CLIO 1-800-368-6868 562 MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Index

Russia/Soviet Union, army communications of, Short, Walter C., 348 383–386 SIGABA, 390 and the Chechen conflict, 385 Signal book, 400–401 countermeasures of against enemy command Signal Officer Candidate School (OCS), 163 and control, 384–385 Signal rockets, 401–402 during the Cold War, 384 drawbacks of, 402 and “radio-electronic combat” (REC), 384 Signal Security Agency (SSA), xxxvii, 402–404 telegraph systems, 383 Signals intelligence (SIGINT), 76, 106, 107, 319, wireless systems, 383–384 320, 403, 404–407 Russia/Soviet Union, navy communications of, during the Cold War, 406–407 386–387 during World War I, 405 during the Cold War, 387 during World War II, 405–406 Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 459–460, 468 origins of, 404–405 Signals Research and Development Establish- Safford, Laurence F., 126, 127, 389–390 ment (SRDE [Great Britain]), 407–409 Salisbury, J. D., 352 SIGSALY voice communication system, xxxiii, Sampson, William T., 419 59, 409–410, 520 Sanford, Edward S., 20 Silicon chip, xxxv, 263–264 Sarnoff, David, xxxiv Silicon Valley (California), 410–412 Satellite communications, 390–394, 469 Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio and the Air Force Satellite Communications System (SINCGARS), 412–413 System (AFSATCOM), 94, 392 Single sideband, 413 and the Communication Moon Relay Project, Site R. See Alternate Joint Communications Cen- 390–391 ter (AJCC) and the Fleet Satellite Communications Six Day War (1967), 138, 234 (FLTSATCOM) system, 94–95, 392 Slaby, Adolph, xxix, 143, 182 and the Global Broadcast System (GBS), 393 Smoke signals, 415–416 and the Initial Defense Satellite Communica- Society of Wireless and Telegraph Engineers, 231 tions System (IDSCS), 393 Solid state electronics, 416–417 military satellite communications (MILSAT- South Africa (and the Boer Republics), 417–418 COM), 94, 391–392 and the Special Signal Services (SSS), 418 and the Milstar Satellite Communications Spanish-American War (1898), xxvii, xxviii, System, 95–96, 393–394 418–420, 444, 468 optimum altitude for, 391 signal flags used during, 419–420 of the Soviet Union, 391 Spectrum frequencies, 420–422, 421 (chart) Scherbius, Arthur, 140 extremely high frequency (EHF), 422 Schley, Scott, 419 extremely low frequency (ELF), 421 Scott, Frank, 394 high frequency (HF), 421 Scott Air Force Base (Illinois), 394–395 medium frequency (MF), 420 Searchlights/signal blinkers, 395–397, 396 super high frequency (SHF), 422 (photo) ultra-high frequency (UHF), 420, 422 Secret Internet Protocol Router Network very high frequency (VHF), 420, 421–422 (SIPRNet), 100 Spectrum management, 422–425 Semaphore systems, xxvi, 214, 383, 397–399, 398 early nineteenth-century legislation concern- (photo). See also Chappe semaphore system; ing, 422–423 Flags and the Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), Committee (IRAC), 321–322, 423–424, 425 xxxvii, 12, 399–400 and the Joint Frequency Panel (JFP), 424–425 Shafter, William R., 419 and the U.S. Military Communications-Elec- Shockley, William, 455 tronics Board (MCEB), 424

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Spencer, Knight, 223 flexibility of terrorist organizations regarding Spies, 425–427 communications, 507–508 Spratt, Jack, 223 and the observation-orientation- Spread spectrum technology, 267–268, decision-action (OODA) loop, 507, 508 427–428 operations in Afghanistan, 508 Squier, George Owen, 428–429 Tesla, Nikola, 451–452 Stager, Anson, xxvii, 20, 21, 429–430 Tiltman, John Hessell, xxxiii, 179, 452–453 Stanton, Edwin M., 21, 36, 429 Trafalgar, Battle of, 453–454 Strategic Communications Command Transistor, 455–456 (STRATCOM), 430–431 Trexler, James H., 93, 390–391 The Strategy of Terror (E. Taylor), 364 Tri-Service Tactical Communications Program Stubblefield, Nathan, 200, 201 (TRI-TAC), 456–457 Submarine communications, 431–432 Tropospheric scatter (troposcatter), 457–458 Suez Crisis, 432–433 Truxton, Thomas, 458–459 Sweden, 130 Tsushima, Battle of, xxix, 459–460 “System of systems,” 433–435 Turing, Alan Mathison, xxxiii, 460–461, 520 System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment (SOSCOE), 177–178 Ultra, 463–464 Underground communication centers, 464–467, Talk between ships (TBS), 437–438 465 (photo) Tannenberg, Battle of, 371–372, 383, 438–439, and the Underground Facility Analysis 517 Center, 466–467 Taylor, Edmund, 364 U.S. sites, 466 Taylor, Zachary, 24 use of during the Cold War, 465–466 TELCOM mobile wireless units, 439–440 use of during World War II, 464–465 Telefunken, 185, 189 Undersea cables, 467–470 Telegraph, 440–444, 442 (illustration) decline in use of, 469 needle telegraph, 440 drawbacks of, 469 use of in the American Civil War, 441–442 fiber optic cables, 469–470 use of in British colonial areas of Africa, 443 United Kingdom, xxiv, xxix, 442 use of in the Crimean War, 441 and the Falklands conflict, 146–147, 479 use of in Europe, 441 and the Suez Crisis, 432–433 use of in World War I, 443 telephone usage by in the Boer War, 444 Telegraph Automatic Routing Equipment See also Britain, Battle of; Y Service (TARE), 449 United Kingdom, Royal Air Force (RAF) of, Telemetry intelligence (TELINT), 404 66–67, 79, 468, 469, 470–473 Telephone, xxvii–xxviii, 444–447, 445 (photo) and Chain Home radio direction finding British use of, 444–445, 446 (RDF) stations, 66, 67 (photo) ”trench” telephones, 445 and identification, friend or foe (IFF) signals, use of during World War I, 445 471 use of during World War II, 445–446 and the No. 90 Signals Group, 471–472 Teleprinter/teletype, 447–449, 447 (photo) as the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), 470–471 development of, 447–448 Tactical Communications Wing (TCW) of, Television, 449–451 472–473 Terrorism, war on, 507–509 United Kingdom, Royal Corps of Signals, bureaucratic issues concerning, 508 473–476 communications dilemma posed by multiple origins of, 473–474 “wars” on terrorism, 508–509 service of in World War I, 474–475 and the Department of Homeland Security, service of in World War II, 475 508 since 1945 to present, 475–476

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United Kingdom, Royal Navy of, xxix, 476–480 Naval Computer and Telecommunication changes of in the post–World War II period, Station (NCTS), 124 479–480 Naval Security Group (NSG), 328–329, 487 during early “days of sail,” 477 Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), 329–330 during World War I, 478 Navy Radio Laboratory, xxix, 332–333 during World War II, 478–479 See also Naval radio stations; Naval Research and the rise of radio, 477–478 Laboratory (NRL); OP-20-G ; U.S. Navy, UNIVAC, 313, 329 communications systems of U.S. Air Force, xxxv, 16, 151 U.S. Navy, communications systems of, and the Ground Electronics Engineering 330–332, 483–487 Installation Agency (GEEIA), 298 during World War I, 485 U.S. Army, 416, 424 during World War II, 485–486 Army Airways Communications System, 11 Global Command and Control System– Army Battle Command System (ABCS), Maritime, 331 xxxviii, 34–35 Naval Communications Processing and Army Electronics Research and Development Routing System, 330 Laboratories, 9 Naval Computer and Telecommunications Army Security Agency, 28 Area Master Station (NCTAMS), 331 Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS), 28, 86, Naval Network and Space Operations 402 Command (NNSOC), 330 See also U.S. Army Signal Corps Naval Network Warfare Command U.S. Army Signal Corps, 10, 11, 21, 22, 35–40, 38 (NET-WARCOM), 330–331 (photo), 57, 83, 84, 110, 159, 334–335, 347, Navy Communications Supplementary 416, 505 Annex (NAVCOMMSTA), 334 and aerial communications, 36 Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), 331 during the Cold War, 38–39 Office of Naval Research (ONR), 327 during the Korean War, xxxiv post–World War II operations, 486–487 during the Vietnam War, 39 signal use for sailing ships, 483–484 during World War I, 37 submarine communications, 431–432 during World War II, 37–38 use of electricity and wireless at sea, 484–485 establishment of, 223 U.S. Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay publication of the Monthly Weather Review, 36 Equipment (SCORE), 93 and quartz crystal oscillators, 367–368 use of balloons by, 13 Vacuum tubes, xxx–xxxi, xxxii, 162, 280, 437, use of telephones by, 444 490–491 See also Fort Gordon (Georgia); Fort Mon- Vail, Alfred, 166, 200, 303, 306, 441 mouth (New Jersey); Medal of Honor win- Van Deman, Ralph Henry, 491–492 ners, U.S. Signal Corps; Reber, Samuel; van Trotsenburg, C. K., 65 Tri-Service Tactical Communications (TRI- Vehicles/transport, 492–494 TAC); War Department Radio Net/War bicycles, 493 Department Message Center Program motorcycles, 493 U.S. Department of Commerce, 321, 423 railways, 492–493 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), xxxv, 105, trucks, 493 139, 192, 316–317, 362, 392, 450, 498, 522 Vietnam War, xxxvi–xxxvii, 39, 373, 493, 494–499 U.S. Marine Corps, 497 American and Allied communications communications of, 480–481 (BACKPORCH and SOUTHERN TOLL), U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTS), 20, 57, 496–498 481–483 background of, 494–495 U.S. Navy, xxix, 22, 151, 416, 423, 424, 468 communist communications, 495–496 Communication Moon Relay Project last days of the war, 498 (CMR), 93 propaganda used during, 365–366

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and the U.S. incursion into Cambodia, 498 Wireless Telegraph Board (the “Roosevelt See also Airmobile communications; Phu Lam, Board”), xxix, 515–516 Vietnam World War I (1914–1918), xxix–xxxi, 516–519 V-mail, 489–490 difficulty of using visual signals during, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), xxxvii, 516–517 499–500 factors differentiating it from previous wars, Voice relay, 500–501 516 von Arco, George, xxix, 143, 182 naval signaling and radio usage during, 518 von Blücher, Gebhard, 512 propaganda use during, 364 von Clausewitz, Carl, 295 pyrotechnic signals used during, 516 radio equipment used during, xxx, 517 Wade, George, 295 telegraph and telephone use during, 517 Walkie-talkie, 503–504, 504 (photo) U.S. Signal Corps operations during, 517 Warden, John, III, 201–202 See also Jutland, Battle of; Marne, Battle of; War Department Radio Net/War Department Tannenberg, Battle of Message Center, 505–507 World War II (1939–1946), xxxii–xxxiv, 33, and the Army Command and Administrative 519–522 Communications Agency (ACACA), 506 Allied code-breaking success during, 520–521 renaming of as the Army Command and Allied technical advantage during, 519 Administrative Network (ACAN), 506 propaganda use during, 364–365, 521 Warfighter Information Network–Tactical radio security and silence during, 521 (WIN-T), 509–510 telegraph use during, 520 Warfighting Integration (AF/XI), 2, 3 telephone use during, 520 Warsaw Pact, 510–511 See also Midway, Battle of; Pearl Harbor Washington, George, 23 World Wide Military Command and Control Waterloo, Battle of, 511–512 System (WWMCCS), xxxv–xxxvi, xxxvii, Weapons Data Link Network (WDLN), 513 119, 522–523 Welchman, Gordon, xxxiii, 513–514 Wenger, Joseph, 126, 389 Yardley, Herbert O., 527–528 Wheatstone, Charles, 51, 440 Y Service, 525–526 White House Communications Agency (WHCA), 514–515 Zimmermann, Arthur, 380 Wilson, Geoffrey, 399 Zossen (Germany), 529–530 Wilson, Woodrow, 289 Zygalski, Henryk, 357, 358, 359–360 Wireless Institute, 231 “Zygalski sheets,” 358

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